I Carry Your Heart
by ameliapemerson
Summary: A story in my Mary/Matthew Hearts and Bones universe. World War II finds Downton at war once again and Mary and Matthew must face new challenges as their eldest children are putting their lives in danger.
1. Chapter 1

_Why do I do this? This is a new story related to Hearts and Bones (thank you to everyone who read that story. It's among my very favorites. I wanted to just do a one off epilogue…but here I am doing this instead… I hope you like it. If you do I'll keep writing. Rated T for now..but for anyone who's read Hearts and Bones... erm... that will probably change :)_

 **July 1941**

XX

Matthew's back spasmed and he grimaced in pain. "You're getting old," he muttered to himself. The hardback chair didn't help. It wobbled and creaked.

Most of the more comfortable pieces of furniture at Downton were under wraps or put away upstairs by the staff for the duration. They had been replaced by War Office issue desks, chairs, bookcases, and two long conference tables.

The old spinal injury was more and more flaring up due to lack of activity. He hated having a desk job at a time like this.

He glanced up from the report he was analyzing to see the photo he kept in pride of place on his desk. It always made him smile to see his family all together.

It had been taken six years ago.

They had virtually given up on having more children but there was Mary holding their youngest child, the year old Robert on her lap. He was laughing at the camera, always the happiest of children little Robert had brought many moments of joy into the old earl's life until the day he died in 1939.

Matthew held the hand of their oldest son George who had wanted to sit independently in his own chair next to his father. At four and a half he was, even then, rambunctiously head strong. So like Mary. He was away at prep school now but was to arrive by the afternoon train for the summer holidays at the end of the week. Matthew couldn't wait to see him again.

Two elder children stood behind their seated parents and younger siblings. Tall and willowy like their mother, both had the blond hair and blue eyes of their father. Isabella was the eldest Crawley child. She was now married. Her husband was in the RAF, an officer in Bomber Command.

And Cécile…

Matthew's mouth pursed anxiously. So gifted in learning languages, Cécile had been reading French literature at Somerville College, Oxford when she was recruited into the SOE, sent to specialized training, and was now on a mission to infiltrate and to collect information on German movements and transmit the information back by radio.

Matthew rhythmically tapped the table with the end of his pencil. The buzz of ringing telephones, clacking typewriters, and hushed conversation around the small library of Downton Abbey fell away as he gave into the worry that had been slowly building inside him.

She was now five days past her regular communication.

"Cee Cee…" Matthew murmured under his breath, using the nickname he bestowed on her as a chubby baby much to Mary's vexation.

He got a grip on his emotions again. Sat up, coughed, and tried to concentrate.

Downton was once again at war. One of the many stately homes under temporary control by the War Office. It housed a branch of the Inter-Service Research Bureau compiling statistics on general supplies and subsistence for the government.

At least that's what they told anyone who asked.

In reality Matthew had been approached last year during the worst months of the blitz about using Downton, tucked away up in Yorkshire, to secretly house a training school for the Special Operations Executive. Agents trained here in methods of sabotage would then use those skills in overseas covert operations.

Never realizing that the very next year one of those operatives would be his own daughter.

As a VC recipient, former soldier, member of parliament, and Foreign Office diplomat Matthew understood his duty. And he really had no choice. The government would have confiscated the Abbey anyway for some purpose. This way at least he got to choose which department would be housed at the estate. He had resigned as MP for Downton East when Robert died and he took the title of Earl of Grantham. The war started shortly thereafter and, upon trying to re-enlist, he was rejected which stung. At 45 he was at the upper range of volunteers but it was his spinal shock and severe pelvic bruising due to falling into a debris pit in 1916 made him unfit for active service.

Instead he had been promoted to Major and seconded back to Downton to work with the SOE trainees in honing their skills for operations in occupied Europe. His job was to lead a group of native speakers and academicians who taught the SOE operatives the various regional French dialects and idioms so rather than standing out they would blend in to the community. They also taught the soft inflections of Bavarian German as well as standardized High German and the distinctive sound of a Berliner who peppered their speech with French jargon due to long influence of French at the Prussian court.

The team was a dedicated bunch of people. Many were refugees from Nazi occupied France or Belgium. Others were Jewish exiles from Germany or Eastern Europe. They had also combed the universities, finding scholars who were past draft age who wanted to help out using their language skills honed over a lifetime to teach the young agents.

Matthew contributed to the instruction as well but his true job was more of a cross between a conjurer and an umpire. The Foreign Office expected him to perform miracles in getting agents out into the field as quickly as possible. The Army brass and the gowned academics both held the other in utter disdain which didn't help matters. They all were the cream of the crop and it wasn't easy soothing their fragile egos as they constantly butted heads on matters great and small. Just the other day a Walloon from Belgium and a self-proclaimed true Parisian disagreed on the correct pronunciation of the French essayist Michel de Montaigne. It had gotten so heated that Matthew had to referee before it came to blows.

A time consuming job, and not very glamourous, but Matthew knew its vital importance to the war effort.

Right now he was examining a rather tedious list of test scores on linguistic proficiency. It was one of his jobs to weed out those candidates who did not perform well and move on those that did. It was vitally important not to be caught out using the wrong inflection or lingo and give yourself away to Nazi officials in the _zone occupée_. You had to be able to pick it up quick or else be deemed unacceptable to the needs of the SOE.

"What a load of bumf…" he muttered shoving another piece of paper onto yet another pile.

The Official Secrets Act prevented him ever telling Mary about anything of these activities. To anyone who asked he worked at a dreary job for a governmental sub agency and Cécile was on a long walking holiday in the west country, taking a vacation from her uni studies. But he knew his wife far too well to think she was fooled for a minute by the story concocted to conceal his real work. Or Cécile's covert operation.

She knew. But she also knew well enough not to ask.

He looked at the clock again. A few more hours and he could go home.

The pencil started tapping again against the test papers.

XX

Mary lived at Crawley House, no longer able to live at Downton Abbey due to the War Department's commandeering. In the fall of 1940 she took the seven year old Robert and moved into the village; living there with a minimal staff of a cook, day maid, and her own lady's maid Anna who had returned to service after her husband died of cancer in 1928. Anna and John's son served in the army and had been one of those evacuated from Dunkirk in June 1940.

Matthew moved back and forth between Downton and Crawley House depending on how involved he was in a given operation. Time spent with the family was precious. In addition to George returning from school Isabella was also expected today. Mary knew Matthew was looking forward to the small family reunion. Isabella had said she wanted to help out with the younger children but Mary wondered if it was really because with husband Charles away she was restless and worried.

At 44 Mary was as beautiful, as elegant, as contrary as ever. She wanted to take a more active part in the war but knew she had to be at home for her younger children. She wanted to go back to Downton and take her place once again as the Countess of Grantham but knew it was impossible. Once at Crawley House along with her mother, now the Dowager Countess, they served the war effort as best they could. Cora was chair of several local committees including one to find homes for evacuated children fleeing London and the bombing raids. Mary was in charge of Downton's farms that were kept a going concern by the Women's Land Army making sure the fields were sown and reaped on time and help feed a hungry nation. Mostly that was office work, making sure they were paid and equipped properly and finessing things with government agents who constantly scrutinized for further ways to retrench.

"The house will be full to bursting." Mary warned her daughter when Isabella arrived.

The two women kissed cheeks.

"George is arriving at 4:40 from Asygarth and will share with Robert. Matthew's coming for the week end to see everyone. You will have to share with Mama. She's upstairs resting. But don't worry. She's off in the morning for a long visit a friend in the Lake District."

Cora was still a formidable woman at 70 but was also showing signs of her age. Mary made sure the younger children did not bother her during her afternoon naps.

"It's fine," Isabella said giving her mother a hug. "I've been on my own so much lately it will be good to be among people again."

They sat down in the morning room. "Which brings up another subject. I do have some news," Isabella announced.

Mary looked up, expectant.

"No Mama. No grandchild yet." Isabella explained. "I'm going to join the Air Transport Auxiliary and fly aircraft from the factory to the air field."

"What?" Her mother said sharply. "You can't."

"I most certainly can. Cee Cee might swan off to the country and keep up her ivory tower studies but I want to do something."

Her mother's eyes then narrowed. Not quite at each other's throat as she was with Edith at the same age, Cécile and Isabella had their moments over the years. Isabella was a great deal like Matthew in her equanimity, usually unwilling to rise to Cécile's baiting. Their second daughter, however, was all Mary in her capricious obstinacy. Simply averse to give an inch even if she knew she was quite in the wrong.

In this case Isabella wasn't to know that the story about Cécile's walking tour was false. Indeed, neither in truth was she to know. But her husband, for all his gifts, was a terrible liar. She knew better than to question him about what Cécile was really up to. But putting things together in her mind Mary knew that her daughter was most probably involved in some secret war operation. And Matthew was worried.

Mary saw it in his eyes. They had been through so much together from that first meeting in Paris where two strangers became two lovers. He had been disillusioned by what he witnessed in the war. She was jaded from a disastrous marriage. They found solace in each other's arms. And then they fell in love.

They fell hard.

Fast.

Two hearts beating as one.

Nothing had kept them apart. They had made love at first in his cramped flat along the Rue de St. Germain. Then in her posh hotel suite. On a Biarritz balcony or an alley along the Seine their flaming passion had been set alight. Even after they married and settled down their appetite for intimacy did not abate.

Their love had ever been a fierce, consuming one.

He always said Mary saved his life. A damaged man he had drifted through his life. Lost because of the war. Because of his injury, Lavinia's death and then his mother's. His father's suicide. He felt nothing at all by the end. He drowned himself in drink and kept the world at bay with cutting sarcasm. Only Mary brought him back. His friends had seen the change in his desire to throw off the crushing ennui and take a job at the Foreign Office. To try to do his bit to make a better world. To be a good husband and father.

Mary knew Matthew had changed her. For reasons dissimilar to his she drifted as well through life. More than just spoiled because of her title, her family's money and station she was also brittle and caustic towards everyone in her life. No one got close to her. No one would hurt her.

And then Matthew broke her defenses and she found herself, in the best way possible, in his love. He never made her feel less. Something she knew had she married a man her father had wanted would have done. She would have been forced to efface herself for him. Matthew never even thought that possible. Mary was always Mary. Opinionated. Passionate. Headstrong. She did as she like and never looked back.

They had raised their brood and grown rich in love with each one. But even their children said everyone else drifted away from view when the two found themselves in a crowded room. They were lodestones. Magnetic. Drawn irresistibly to the other.

"All rather sickening really," Cee Cee would drawl in a mocking tone. "One's parents should keep separate bedrooms and not be seen to be an embarrassment to the family name."

But they really loved their parents and knew they were lucky. They had grown up happy and ensconced, even during the dark years of the Great Depression, in a certain amount of luxury. Matthew had not been rich and wanted his children to know the value of hard work. Whether that was in education or charity work they were expected to realize that their privilege brought with it obligations of public service.

And so it was here with Isabella's decision. Mary knew it was impossible to gainsay her. She was their daughter and she would do what she was set upon doing.

"A pilot?" Mary asked instead. "Is that even allowed?"

"Absolutely. They are recruiting all over the country Charlie says. I don't want to sit at home and can jam all the war."

Just then Robert ran in the room. "Isabella…Isabella…!" He threw himself into his sister's arms. "Come see my soldiers." He jumped down and started to drag her arm.

"Robert," Mary pulled her son into her own lap. "Let Isabella alone. She'll play later."

"Now! Now!" He insisted. "Gran keeps falling asleep. Papa won't be here for hours…" He dramatically prolonged the word as if it were years instead. "Izza will help me set it up so it will be ready for George." He flashed melancholy eyes and used the nickname he gave his sister when he was unable to say her full name and was meant to butter her up.

And it worked. There was nothing for it but to give in. "I'll be there in a tick," Isabella said. "Give us a chance to gulp down some tea at least."

"Is there cake?" Robert was also easily distracted by food.

"Mrs. Shaw has some custard tarts." Mary answered. Using some of the eggs produced at the farm and the rest from the ration books the cook usually scraped together a decent tea in the afternoon. "And after you can show Isabella your soldiers then we'll all walk to the station to fetch George."

This seemed to satisfy the child and he settled down to wait.

The seven year old had distracted Mary from the conversation with her eldest daughter. She knew Isabella's mind was made up but having yet another child in harm's way made her that much more nerve wracked.

The front door opened. Robert leaped up and ran out the door to see who it was.

Mary waited, thinking it was too early for Matthew.

But then she heard his laugh when his son came tearing around the corner.

Both smiling Mary and her daughter got up to greet him.

He walked in the morning room with Robert in his arms.

"Hello darling," he greeted his wife with a warm kiss on her cheek.

"Isabella," Matthew was so happy to see his eldest daughter and gave her a kiss as well. "I couldn't take it anymore and decided to call it an early day so we can all go to the station together."

Mary squeezed his hand in support. They both felt the need to have as much of the family in one place as possible.

Cécile would be there in spirit, Matthew said to himself. He had decided to go to London to Special Operations Executive headquarters and speak to the director, Sir Frank Nelson, about exactly what information they had on her whereabouts in France. Or if not the director himself, he'd find an old colleague to root out some information.

Gripping Robert even closer in his arms, he struggled to keep a straight face.

Was she dead? Dear God he hoped not.

Wounded, though? Or taken prisoner?

He hated not being able to tell anyone about Cécile being missing but such was the vital secrecy of these operations that he could not.

He and Mary's eyes met.

"We'll talk later," he murmured. "I have to go to London in the morning."

Mary bit her first response back, a question as to why he had to leave so unexpectedly. But instead she just briskly nodded and got on with pouring the tea.

Her hand only slightly shaking as she held out the cups.

XX

 _Où sommes-nous censées recontrer cet homme?_

Cécile was hunkered down inside the garret. The radio had broken and she was having trouble fixing it. The course had trained her how but the device was proving tricky.

In the meantime she had been contacted by a trusted agent that they were to meet another, code named Henri that night about information he had on German troop movements in the area.

"A _u café au coin de la rue,"_ said her contact. A woman she only knew as Gaby.

Cécile nodded. The Gestapo had been actively rounding up people for questioning and she had been laying low. But they needed to meet this man. Any information they garnered would go to helping Bomber Command know the best industrial sites to target.

Just then the two women heard the banging of a car door outside and the sound of German voices.

Had they been found out?

XX

 _Tbc (if you decide it's worthy! Thanks for reading)_


	2. Chapter 2

_I'm so glad you liked the first chapter so here's some more! Thank you for the reviews and kind words of encouragement. Again this is a sequel to Hearts and Bones so if you want to know more of MM's life in Paris post WWI please read that story!_

 _**please assume all the dialogue in France is in French. I was trying to use French but this story will have a great deal of dialogue and I think it will prevent me making egregious errors if I just make a disclaimer here :)_

XX

 **July 1941, Bordeaux France**

Cécile looked carefully through the underbrush. Trying to make no noises to call attention to herself she waited for her contact. A Free French resistance operative posing as a farmer had information on German troop numbers guarding an electrical transformer station that was a prime target to be destroyed. He was to meet her and another agent within the half hour.

Her damned radio had gone out days ago and despite all her efforts it was still broken. After lugging the thing around for weeks, she was particularly peeved the wiring had frayed and she could not fix it. As a result she had barely made the contact. Gaby had proven her worth as she guided Cécile down a myriad of hallways and out of the flat by a back-stair case, eluding the Gestapo by mere minutes. They had made their way to the location outside Pessac in good time and they had reconned for possible German forces on the look for any suspicious activity in the area.

So far so good.

Once the contact and been made the and the information exchanged Gaby would then use her radio to transmit the information. Both women would then probably be pulled out and returned to England to debrief their superiors and get the radio fixed.

This would give Cécile the chance to see her family.

Her father would be worried sick. His own position with the agency would give him the clearance to at least know of her regular contact if not her exact mission. He wouldn't be allowed to tell her mother, sister, brothers, or anyone in the family that she was missing.

She felt terrible knowing that. Her father had only reluctantly supported her desire to join the SOE against what she knew would have been her mother's vehement opposition. She was too young. She needed to finish her education. Lady Mary Crawley, if she knew what Cécile intended, would have come up with a multitude of reasons why her daughter could find a way to contribute without having to actually put her life in danger.

Instead Cécile only had to work on her father's own sense of duty. "I only want the same opportunity you had. To do what is right. To make my own decision as to how I serve."

Her father's reaction was unexpected. He had gone pale and his hands tightly balled into fists as if he was fighting some internal demon. It had taken several minutes for him to recover his wits and respond. When he did so it was measured and thoughtful. "I will always support you in whatever takes your passion. You're my daughter and I respect your decisions."

She had kissed his cheek and said, "thank you Papa."

Only then did he attempt a droll remark. "We will need to come up with a plausible story to tell your Mama. She can't know of your real job but to say you're still at uni would be impossible as she'd insist on a visit."

Thus they had concocted the idea of a semester ending caravan trip to the west country. It wasn't exactly important Mary believed it—neither father nor daughter believed it would go over at all—but that it was credible enough for her to realize what was happening. She had lived with a diplomat most of her marriage to Matthew where he could not tell her much of his work. She knew as well the "Careless Talk Cost Lives" placarded all over the place.

Something was up but there was nothing to do but get on with things. Mary had accepted it and stuck to the story.

Matthew had kept completely out of Cécile's training and assignment placement.

And now Cécile believed that, despite the setbacks, she had done well in the past six weeks in France. Kept her cool and stuck to the mission.

Gaby heard some rustling and pulled out her gun. Cécile stood behind her, the trees blocking her view. But it was just the contact who had arrived at the rendezvous.

The two women breathed sighs of relief. Gaby kept lookout as Cécile walked towards the man.

The rendezvous took just a few minutes. The contact, a man in his early 40s with a thick local accent informed them, "The rotation of guards is every four hours." He handed Cécile a silk piece cloth with a hand drawn map. "Their stations are marked here. You get this back to your superiors. Tell them it is of utmost priority this electric station be taken out. It will disrupt activities for weeks at the nearby German airfield."

Cécile shoved the map in her pocket. Gaby motioned they had to be on their way.

They two women carefully made their way back to an alternate safe house, closer to the wooded copse from which they emerged after the appointment with the Resistance cell agent. Cécile had already stowed the broken radio there, hidden from view. Gaby had stored her radio as well and she sent the coded signal back to base in Britain so that the two women would be picked up the following night by the SOE's Lysander single engine high-winged aircraft and returned across the channel.

If all went to plan.

They moved yet again once their message was sent in case the Germans had tracked their transmission.

Gaby knocked on a farmhouse door and a woman, expecting them but still with guarded, fierce eyes glanced out a slit in the window before opening the lock. The young Frenchwoman gave a swift nod of her head, allowing the two women in before she quickly closed the door again.

Any shaft of light in the darkness would potentially alert the Germans.

Herded into a back room without delay Cécile could see very little as they were guided through the kitchen, a dim light coming from a fireplace. Her nose caught the rich smell of root vegetables and beef, a stew being braised in a pot hung over the glowing embers of the fire. She thought she saw an older man rocking in a nearby chair but no words were exchanged.

The back room was cramped but sufficient for their needs. Blankets on a cot bed. Enough space for the two radios. They would remain in the room until the next night.

"You stay here," the woman said, emphatically pointing to the bare wooden floor. She seemed about their age, her hair in a tight bun and wearing a woven shawl against the chill of the night. No names would be exchanged or even many pleasantries. She gestured to a corner of the room where a bucket sat.

That would serve their toiletry needs.

"Thank you," Cécile said, her voice slightly higher pitched, giving away just a touch of the anxiety she felt. She sat wearily down on a three-legged stool, the only chair in the confined space. The narrow escape of the afternoon combined with the thrill of successfully meeting the contact with the Resistance left her in a kind of heady numbness. Her body going through the motions while her mind replayed the events of the day over and over. How could have done things better? More effectively? Had she cocked up anything?

Gaby pushed both suitcases, the radios hidden within, behind some boxes in the corner of the room. She sat cross legged down on the cot. A candle beside on a small table she lit with a match.

The French woman closed the door behind her, a lock secured in place. The sound of the bolt made Cécile jump. Suddenly very frightened. She began to tap her foot nervously, mechanically pulling down a lock of her hair over her face. What if they were locked inside when the Germans raided the farm? Burned the house? With them inside…

Gaby heard the noise. "You have to stop that. We must be quiet."

"Sorry..." Cécile ceased the rhythmical patter.

God she was hungry. That savory aroma of stew made her stomach growl though. Yet another sound…

But then the lock opened and the woman who was protecting them brought in two bowls of stew, some baguettes, and strong coffee.

"That should see us through the night." Gaby said. "Many thanks," taking one of the trays and biting eagerly into one of the baguettes.

Cécile took the other and put it on her knees.

The door closed once again. The lock jammed in place.

The morning a very long ways away.

XX

 **July 1941 London**

Matthew walked briskly down Baker Street. He didn't want to remain in London for any length of time but he did want to find out more information on Cécile's mission in France. He wasn't sure he'd get anything out of his fellow SOE operatives but he wanted to give it a go. Secrecy was of utmost importance and Matthew would understand if he met with a wall of silence.

He had arranged a meeting with Major Maurice Buckmaster, F section head for Intelligence Operations in France. Inevitably dubbed one of the "Baker Street Irregulars" because of its Sherlockian location, Buckmaster was an old colleague of Matthew's from his time in France in the 1920s while working for the Foreign Office. The younger man had written articles for _Le Matin_ and the two would sometimes meet at a nearby café for a drink after work.

It all reminded Matthew that not five or six years previous he had been the one scrounging around Paris for freelance journalism work while struggling to complete his report for the British Peace Commission. His wife had died of the flu, his mother from a bombing raid in Paris. His father never overcame his grief and had sat at home in Manchester in a funk of despair. Matthew himself wasn't much better, having survived the cauldron of war and a overcome a serious injury but was one of many who struggled with the guilt of the survivor. But by the time he met Maurice in 1922 he had settled down as the heir to an earldom, married with two little girls, and dare he say it, respected among his colleagues and society at large.

Downton, Mary's love, their children had saved him. He had been a broken man and he was who he was today because of them.

But he also chafed at the compromises. Part of him liked being footloose in Paris, open for whatever life brought. The automatonlike demands of the army for mindless drilling and following orders to kill or die was replaced with a welcome sense of independence. He could criticize the Peace Talks in an editorial, get paid for writing erotic short stories for Parisian literary periodicals (good thing those were written under a pseudonym) or even commence a blazing love affair with a dark-haired beauty, neither knowing the other's name yet at the end of it had mapped each contour of the other's body and soaked in all the other had to offer.

The affair had been intense. Heady and brilliant. They had done nothing for days on end but stay in his cramped flat and make love. They had given into each other completely.

That got Matthew thinking as he made his way down Baker Street. Crawley House had become very cramped with all the children and extended relations. Once they were all reassured that Cécile was safe, Matthew decided he should reignite that spontaneity. Mary needed time away, and he most certainly wanted her all to himself.

He finished the walk to the unremarkable front door of Section F. It was meant to blend into the neighborhood, showing nothing special about the remarkable war effort within.

He hoped Maurice Buckmaster could help with information about Cécile. He was a veteran of Dunkirk, who was now part of the recruitment and training of operatives working with the resistance in France. Those men and women, once recruited by Buckmaster or another agent, would be sent to advanced training at places such as Downton to learn how to use radios and other ways to collect information on enemy movements as well as techniques to carry out acts of sabotage and provide equipment and money for resistance operatives.

Once inside the office Matthew took off his service cap and gloves. Expecting his arrival, a woman got up from her desk and met him. Romanian born, educated at the Sorbonne and a finishing school in Lausanne, Vera Rosenberg emigrated with her mother to Britain right before the most brutal anti-Semitic activities began in Romania. Changing to use her mother's maiden name of Atkins she became Buckmaster's assistant in the SOE.

"Major Crawley," Vera said, shaking his hand. "Good to see you again." The two had met when they attended meetings at the War Office.

Vera almost matched Matthew's height and as they stood eye to eye, he tried to read Vera's face for any sign of worry but she gave nothing away. A brusque woman, Vera was not liked by everyone at the agency but she was responsible for many of the female agents and if anything had happened to Cécile she would know.

"The major will be available after he gets off the phone." She said, taking her place once again behind the desk.

Matthew knew better than to ask anything until they were all together in the back office. Even then he doubted he'd be enlightened as to exactly what her operation included. He would be happy with any information, not even to her whereabouts, just that they had heard from her through regular channels.

He sat down, nervously tapping his knee with his fingers as he waited.

Cécile… he knew he shouldn't ever play favourites and he loved all his children… but Cécile shared his love of language, his love of literature. She was still his little girl speaking French at a mile a minute while they fed the ducks at the pond near the Abbey. Her gift needed to be nurtured and he had rejoiced when she found a place at Somerville College. When the war started they had all sat together as a family in the library at Downton on September 3, 1939 listening to the Prime Minister declare war against Germany on the radio; everyone telling the parents lucky they were that their boys were too young to fight.

Then France fell to the Germans in June 1940 it had crossed his mind Cecile might play a role in government service but had thought she would finish her academic work first. Instead at 19 she was recruited by the SOE's Selwyn Jepson for work in France.

When she approached him for his support, what could he say? He was also being recruited at the same time and was thick in the middle of arranging for Downton to serve as a training ground for agents. So he said yes.

He couldn't tell Mary and that hurt. They had vowed ever since discovering their true identities never to say anything but the truth. But this was not something of his making. Their work was top secret. And he knew his storm braving wife got the signals and made connections in her head about what was going on. Not the details of course, but enough to assure her support.

So now they found themselves in the ironic position of having not one but two children in the war effort. Both of them young women. Their beloved daughters. Cécile secretly joining the SOE. Isabella taking on a position with the ATA.

Matthew sighed. All his work since the peace talks of 1919, and the work of thousands of other diplomats, had failed this generation. They were the survivors of the worst war in modern history. The war to end all wars supposedly. They had seen hell and it was of their own society's making. And they were resolved to change it all.

It had been up to them to make the politicians hear. To make the world safer. Freer. So that no more had to die in the false name of patriotism or duty. Dulce et decorum et pro patria mori indeed…

But all had fallen on deaf ears. Hate festered. And when it erupted in dictatorship, the fear of another war led to appeasement. Even coming from a genuine desire not to send another generation to fight, it was the wrong policy which eventually led once again to war.

All happening in twenty short years. The older, wiser, but damaged survivors of 1914 could do nothing but send off their sons and daughters to yet more foreign battlefields.

Matthew despaired. He should have tried harder. Worked harder in the Foreign Office or as Downton East's MP to have them listen. Done something …

It did no good of course. Here he was. And here he had to fight. Again. For his family. For his children.

For Cécile.

It all came down to that. You fight for what you love.

Matthew heard the door click and it opened and Buckmaster walked through.

"Matthew," he said. "Come inside."

XX

 **July 1941 Yorkshire**

"Georgie your lunch is getting cold." Mary looked up from her own plate, falling into her old nickname for her eldest son as she was so very happy to have him back from school for the summer holidays. She was in a bit of a hurry though as she had to be at the farms to meet the Land Army supervisor for the day's assignments.

"Mama I am eleven years old next month," her son stood up straighter in his chair. "I would like to be called George from now on."

Mary suppressed a laugh, knowing he wouldn't like thinking his mother was making fun of him at all. She wasn't of course. It was just how so very grown he sounded when all she wanted to do was to hug him and keep him as her little boy.

"I wish Papa had allowed me to travel with him to London. He promised to take me to the Natural History Museum so I could study some of the fossils on display. Mr. Watson told me all about them at school."

"London still isn't safe." Mary said.

"I've heard that Herr Hitler is concentrating everything now on Russia and the blitz is over." George gave her a confident look.

"Oh indeed?" Mary tutted. "And just where did you hear that?"

George gulped down a sip of tea. "Teddy Minor's older brother…he's not really his older brother because he's the son of Mr. Fenwick's second marriage…he was divorced you know in 1934… so that makes him I guess a step older brother." He took another bite of the toast. "I'm glad I don't have step older brothers. Older sisters are bad enough. Izza won't even take me riding anymore…"

"And how does Teddy Minor's older brother know?" Mary tried to keep her son from straying too far from the point of his story.

"What?... Oh…." George said, totally in awe. "He's in the RAF." As if that was explanation enough.

Mary smiled. George was obsessed with flying these days. Ever on about the types of airplanes he sometimes saw flying across the skies, making drawings of their silhouettes and shoving them in his pocket in case of German spies in the area. Matthew had bought the boys a Dinky model of a Spitfire, sold in a special presentation box as part of a fund to raise money for the RAF. George and the seven-year-old Robert would make spluttering noises to imitate the engine, holding the die cast metal model up high pretending to fly it all around the grassy area back of Crawley House. The younger boy whinging that George wouldn't let him hold it enough. Matthew had taken his wife aside and said, "I would have bought them one each but they were in short supply."

"Finish your food. Eat it all now. Isabella will take you out riding today. She promised. I have to be at the farm so you make sure Robert doesn't get into trouble."

"When will Cee Cee come home?"

George's blue eyes, the exact match of Matthew's, looked directly into hers. "Is she all right?"

"Yes. Yes of course she is. We told you she's out with friends in the west country. Walking around Cornwall. You know how she likes to do that. I think they're going to meet up with an archaeological dig."

The embellishment seemed to satisfy her son. Mary kissed him on the top of his head and made her way towards the back of the house. Stepping into her Wellingtons and rain slicker she reminded cook that there would be only the three children for lunch. She and Cora had a WI meeting in the afternoon.

Walking towards the back-gate entrance to Downton she tried to keep her mind off of Matthew's trip to London. He never said his true purpose, saying just that it was routine bureaucratic nonsense. But she knew it was more. Much more. But it did no good to pry. He wasn't allowed to tell and she wasn't allowed to ask.

She had a feeling it was about Cécile. She kept the charade up among the children but she knew her daughter was engaged in the same kind of work as Matthew. Only in a much more dangerous locale. Most probably France given her penchant for the language.

Any thought running through her head only ended in the fear Cécile was in great danger. Which did no one any good.

So Mary thrust her hands into the slicker's pockets and made her way across the muddy field to the barn. Much of the land had not been under cultivation for quite awhile. The Depression had meant that large portions had been given up to pasture as Britain relied more on imported foodstuffs. But now the farm was producing vegetables, potatoes, and wheat as well as milk production and poultry and eggs.

The farms hadn't been in this much use since her father's childhood Mary imagined. It was on these walks she missed him most. They would often walk together across the headlands, or ride when the hunting season was on.

Arriving at the barn, Mary knocked on the office door. She got on well with the WLA supervisor Emily Hawkes, something she gathered didn't always happen. Hawkes was a chemist by profession, having left her position at a research laboratory at the University of Sheffield to work with the Land Army and she was used to being in charge. Mary had found her crisp voice and succinct directives at first off putting but once she got to know her, found her efficiency to be admirable.

And Hawkes found it refreshing to have a woman owner. "None of this women can't do this or that nonsense. If one more farmer looks me in the eye and says 'females can't 'andle 'orses' I was going to show them not only can we handle the horses we can order them to kick you where it 'urts…"

Mary knew they would get along fine after that. She was also glad of the competence brought to all the book keeping. The government kept strict tabs on all foodstuffs and the records had to be meticulous. She also had the National Farm Survey forms to complete for the War Agricultural Executive Committee.

"More bumf…" Matthew would grumble looking over all the paperwork, and then with a wink say, "Glad you have to deal with it."

But both knew the importance of accurate record keeping. National rationing had been instituted and the better they knew how much food stuffs were available the better the system would be for all.

That was the hope anyway. So she had to gather data on crops, livestock, machinery, employed labour, soil constitution, drainage…the list was endless. In addition, a map had to be drawn showing the lay out of all the fields.

Mary gathered up some of the papers Emily had completed and they agreed on a work schedule for the girls, now arriving two by two through the barn doors ready to get to work either layout out hay for the cows and horses or getting the tractors underway for preparing the ground for plowing.

They chatted amiably amongst each other.

It made Mary suddenly miss her own siblings. Edith had ever been living her own life after the last war ended. Having had some kind of mysterious love affair while she worked for The Sketch, she at least was now settled with the Marquess of Hexham in Northumberland. Maybe in the autumn they'd get together with their two teenage children. Bertie, a former soldier, was now with the army in North Africa. They were all naturally worried about him. Sybil and Tom had also moved frequently as Tom looked for work. First in London, then New York City, then Dublin, then finally Manchester where he worked on the Guardian as a general correspondent. They had settled there in the mid '30s with their three boys and older sister Sybbie. Irish neutrality had meant some political differences of opinion once again with the elder Robert Crawley, and relations weren't at their best when he died. Sybil had managed to get to her father's side before his passing and that was of great comfort to the family.

Now Tom Jr and his brother Bryn served in the Irish Merchant Navy while the youngest, Kevin was at school in Dublin. Sybbie was in England working as a plotter in Wiltshire for the WAAF. Sybil kept saying she'd visit when on leave but the time frame kept shifting as events of the war took precedence. Tom had offered to help Mary with the growing mound of paperwork as Matthew was swamped in correspondence of his own. Both knew it wasn't just piffle as Matthew kept saying. He was working on whatever project was happening at the Abbey and was not at liberty to tell. The growing lines etching his face in worry and concern meant that his burden was a heavy one. Tom wanted to do all he could to help out his friend. His heart condition once again keeping him out of any war related work.

Bringing the folders back to Crawley House after the WI meeting, Mary sat down at the desk and tried to make sense of Emily's peculiar handwriting.

The house was quiet. Isabella true to her word taking both boys out for the day to give their mother a chance to work.

Trying to focus her thoughts first drifted to Cécile, the nagging worry that something was wrong never left her. Matthew had telephoned he was returning by the afternoon train but she could tell nothing from his voice other than he sounded tired.

It would do no good to fret about that. So she tried again.

But then there was something wrong with Isabella, making Mary drifted again from the dizzying columns of figures in the accounts books. Maths was never really her strong point.

Isabella wasn't her normal, happy self. It wasn't just the desire to join the ATA to fly aircraft from the factories to the air fields. Something in her marriage was wrong. She hardly spoke about Charles anymore whereas she would talk of nothing else both before and immediately after their wedding. Mary had been opposed to the marriage saying Isabella was far too young at 20 to enter into marital life. But, headstrong like herself, Isabella demanded her parents' consent. Charles was not aristocratic it's true, but neither had Matthew been before finding out he was heir to Downton.

Mary remembered her daughter turning that to her favour. "I know you didn't even meet Papa before he was heir but he didn't grow up rich or entitled, but he was smart and from a good family. Those had to be considerations even after you found out he was Grandfather's heir. Or did you only decide on him because of the inheritance?"

Mary had bit back the retort that how dare her daughter speak to her in that fashion. She was trying to be a mother who did not react the same way as their parent's generation. And of course Isabella had no idea of Mary's past. Her divorce in 1919. An affair with a total stranger in the intoxicating rebellious air of post war Paris. She had kept it all very much private as she and Matthew had settled into a more normal married life.

With Matthew's nudging, she had consented and Isabella and Charles were married. To all evidence they were happy. But war does change things. Charles had been gone since joining up in 1939 and his work as a navigator with Bomber Command was incredibly taxing.

What was wrong between them? Isabella would only brush her mother off, saying you'd not understand.

Mary had been a mother much closer to her children than her own mother was. But all her children still saw Matthew as the more approachable one. The one to whom they would release their burdens and feel as if he was always on their side.

Was this her chance?

She wanted to help Isabella. Maybe now she could she use her past to try to break the barrier with her daughter and convince her she understood about love and passion and making the wrong choices for what seemed at the time the best of reasons.

Would it help? She didn't know but it gave her a sense of purpose to try. In a world where everything was chop and change as dear old Carson used to say, maybe one thing could be solved just by opening up and showing she cared.

She'd give it a go the next time she and Isabella had a private moment.

Resolved, Mary buckled down once again with the accounts books for the next several hours.

XX

 _We'll continue with Cécile in France and the family all together again in Yorkshire in the next chapter. Thank you so much! Maurice Buckmaster, Vera Atkins, and Selwyn Jepson are all real members of the Special Operations Executive._


	3. Chapter 3

XX

 **August 1941**

Mary approached the summerhouse in the fading light of midsummer.

It was late, the younger children had left for an overnight visit to the younger son of Lord Easton across the village at Bridge House. Perhaps they were the lucky ones, Mary thought. Escaping their two sisters Cécile and Isabella who were bickering in the kitchen. Again. Ever since their younger daughter had returned from wherever Mary was supposed to not know about, the two sisters had been nipping and baiting each other like they did during the worst years of their adolescence.

Bella had offered to do the washing up as it was Mrs. Shaw's day off and the day maid had already left to take care of a sick child. Cécile had snapped that her sister would just end up breaking all the china mama had brought from Downton just like she did in the playroom when she was eight. She exaggeratedly rose from her seat and said, "I might as well do them myself."

Isabella had rolled her eyes. "You know nothing about it. You pushed me to run after Eliza the cat and didn't even look back. I cleaned it all up before Nanny Martha saw so we wouldn't get into trouble."

Cécile bit back, "no one told you to do that. You just wanted to curry favour with Nanny so she'd think better of you."

"That's not true and you know it…" Isabella followed her sister into the kitchen and the argument escalated.

Mary left them to it. Matthew had been remote most of the day. Not even coming in for dinner which wasn't like him. When the children were scattered to the four winds, he lamented not having them all together. Now that they were, especially his Cee Cee who had returned to them safe and sound, he was absent.

She went to look for him.

When he wasn't in the room he used for his office, she walked outside. She saw his handsome silhouette against the orange tinged clouds, leaning against one of the wooden pillars under the eaves of the summer house. When the house got too noisy and crowded for him to work or think he would often retreat to the small shelter in the back garden of Crawley House. Mary was kept in the dark about his war work at Downton. She knew it was something to do with a special organization of the government to fight the Germans. Deduced that just because it was so secret. What else could it be? She didn't probe or pester him any further. From long experience now of being a diplomat's wife and confidante, she knew what he could and could not tell her.

But this was different. Something happened with Cécile that made him retreat into himself in a way she hadn't seen since the earliest weeks of their relationship.

It might have something to do with the conversation he had with his daughter the early hours of the previous day. She had heard them behind the closed door of the morning room. She was getting ready to go to the farm office to go over the accounting books with the Land Army county secretary so she was only half listening. It started off conversational in quality and then changed. Nothing as dramatic as the snippy barbs being exchanged in the kitchen, but ominous in the way they fell dead on her ears.

Monotone. Detached.

The sound had given her chills.

Matthew had never been like that with Cécile. As much as he loved all his children, everyone knew Cécile was his favourite. They were just so much alike.

When Cécile left the morning room and closed the door behind her, she saw her mother gathering up her hat and gloves. She had walked over and gave her mother a quick kiss good bye on her cheek, saying "Good morning" in her normal clipped voice.

She didn't refer to whatever had happened with Matthew so Mary was quite in the dark. Neither spoke to the other for the rest of the day. Mostly because Matthew left for his work shortly after and stayed well into the night and then back to the Abbey early the next morning.

And now he was alone again. She didn't even know when he returned.

Mary was determined to get to the bottom of the matter. Walking towards the summer house, Matthew heard her soft footfalls on the stone walkway and turned around.

"Darling…." He gawped like a little boy caught red handed as he tried to hide his cigarette behind his back.

Mary gave her husband a sly smirk. She didn't want to show him just how concerned she was as she knew he only smoked those cheap things any more when he was thinking about the war. Something to do with the odor bringing it all back to him.

Why would he want to do that?

Instead she reached around his shoulders, pulling him closer towards her body. She slipped her hand down his arm, towards his hand, and pulled the cigarette away from his fingers and crushed it under the toe of her closed toe shoe.

"You don't need those," she whispered in his ear. "You have me."

Matthew chuckled in that deliciously low throated way that made her shiver. "Very true."

They kissed.

He relaxed in her arms. "I'm sorry for being so distant."

"What's wrong? We should all be happy with Cécile home."

Matthew's lips tensed again. "Have you noticed any change in her?"

"She's just gotten back from…" Mary had to pause. "…from wherever she's been." She gave her husband a knowing look. "And not surprisingly she's a bit on edge. Retreating back to known territory with Isabella for one thing."

"That's just the surface, Mary love. I know that look. That blankness she's trying to hide. It's…" His voice got hoarse. "It's something I never wanted to see again. Especially in one of our children."

He paced around the enclosed space of the summer house. "I tried to talk to her yesterday but she…" Matthew turned on his heels back to face Mary. "She doesn't think I'd understand what she'd been through." He shrugged helplessly. "It's my own fault of course. I never talked about what happened to me."

It was true, Mary knew. Matthew had always allowed the children to think he had a desk job at the War Office for most of the previous war. His injury he put down to a slip in the mud early on that prevented him from returning to active service. Having two girls alone for so long kept any war talk to a minimum anyway, especially around their grandfather. Robert Crawley was never going to swap blood and guts stories with Matthew in front of his granddaughters. And he'd never think to bring up Matthew's Victoria Cross around what he always called his "sweet little girls."

So Matthew had let it all slip away from his life. And he was a better man for it. A better father. Content, patient, he was never happier than in the years they lived in London in the house at Eaton Square and his job at the Foreign Office.

By the time the boys were of an age to ask questions about what daddy did in the war, Isabella was at Harrogate Ladies' College and Cécile attended the _Lycée Français de Londres_ doing language immersion with the hopes of attaining a place at the Sorbonne. And even then, Matthew told his sons only the minimum to assuage their curiosity. He didn't dissuade them playing soldiers as that's what little boys did, but he not ever intend to glamourize the hell of France or exaggerate his participation in the war.

He had done his duty. The VC he wore in the 1919 Victory March in commemoration of his fallen comrades he put away in a drawer and had not looked at since.

Was it now time to bring it out again?

To tell Cécile he did understand?

"She can't tell me details of course," Matthew said. "Even though I signed the Official Secrets Act I can't make inquiries into operations I'm not involved in. That was made clear during my visit to London a fortnight ago."

He finally settled down next to his wife on the bench along the side of the summer house.

"But I can try to help her recover something of herself." His hand was clammy in Mary's. "I know how lost I was…"

Mary rested her head on his shoulder. "If what you went through can bring some reprieve to Cécile's pain, I won't say it was worth it as that's horrible nonsense, but it might help you as well as her. To … to share something so unspeakable will allow you some relief."

Matthew felt such a surge of love for his wife. He knew he had put her through the grist mill over the years with his moodiness and occasional fits of temper connected to events she could never truly relate to. And yet she stood by him. Defending him to her father when Matthew was at his worst.

"Thank you darling. I will give it a try."

Mary stood up, hearing the back-kitchen door slam. "I think you'll have your chance soon. Cécile is charging this way." She slid two fingers down his arm. "I'll leave you two alone."

Matthew gave his wife a tenuous smile. "Don't wait up. We might be some time."

Mary kissed his cheek and turned to walk down the stone steps of the summer house passing Cécile as she moved towards the shelter. Mary couldn't help but notice her daughter trembled as the embraced.

"Good night, Mama. Isabella's finishing the washing up. I left her to it."

"Night darling…" Mary said. She left, taking heart in the way she heard Cécile greet her father.

"Papa can we talk. I'm sorry about the way I left things yesterday…"

XX

Cécile felt completely discombobulated by being home. The normality of it all. Her brothers playing and yelling passing the football back and forth. Her sister getting on her nerves. Her mother's brisk efficiency in everything she did. The house, the flowers, the smells…

Like France never happened. The damp rot of the woods. The stale odor of her hiding place's old blankets as she shivered in the darkness awaiting the morning. The roaring vibrations of the Lysander's engine as she fumbled her way up the fixed ladder alongside the plane in a rush to get to safety.

After it had happened. Her hands naturally shook. Her body felt like jelly. The blood smeared on her face, the metallic taste in her mouth. The Welrod pistol, cartridge empty, in her now strangely limp hand.

The event that she could tell no one but her immediate superiors about.

She had accomplished her mission. The contact was made. The map was in safe hands. The German transformer stations were to be targeted by Bomber Command that very week. Everyone at the debriefing had been pleased. She was to be congratulated for keeping so cool under fire, they said. Great things were expected of her now on her next assignment.

She should have been gratified.

Instead she felt dirty. The smells of France clung to her body. The mission wouldn't be washed away with a clap on her shoulder, a 'job well done,' and a fortnight leave.

The only person who remotely understood was her father. Upon her return home he had watched her. She felt his warm, loving eyes on her. As if he knew instinctively what she had been through. He kept a distance the first few days, letting her readjust. Asking nothing after her debriefing, but making sure no one disturbed her as she slept well into the next day exhausted after all the questions, the details that were so hard to conjure from the depths of her brain where she had buried them.

When he did try to reach out, she had rejected him. Their conversation yesterday had ended with her saying "Papa I know you mean well but your war was quite different. A desk job can hardly compare."

The dead space that fell between them was cavernous in its silence.

She had hurt him in some way. He had gone completely ashen faced, mumbling a vague, "I see…" and then said no more.

"I'm not even sure how much I can tell you, really. It's…"

"It's fine Cécile. I'm just glad you have you home."

But the words sounded so empty, hollow. Unlike anything her father had ever said to her. She didn't know what to do so she just said, "I've got to get on…" and kissed his cheek and left the room.

And that was how they left it.

Now, after her childish blow up with Isabella, she wanted to speak to him again.

To get to the heart of what made Matthew so pained it seemed to have the life taken right out of him.

Approaching the bench of the summer house, she said, "Papa can we talk. I'm sorry about the way I left things yesterday…"

Matthew's head rose and reached out his hand to his daughter. "You don't have to be. You've been through too much to worry about my feelings."

"That's not true…" She sat down. "Your 'good opinion once lost, is lost forever.'"

Matthew had to smile at Cécile's use of one of their favorite Austen quotations. "You can never lose my good opinion. You are so brave, my dearest girl."

"Then why do I feel so misplaced? Nothing is the same."

Matthew heaved a heart heavy sigh. "It's the cost of bravery. You lose pieces of yourself in the action. They fall away never to return and yet you have to go on, pretending it doesn't matter."

His voice was brittle, cracking at the edges.

"How do you know that?" Cécile murmured. She had always thought her father the epitome of calm composure and yet here he was, shattering into a thousand pieces before her.

"Because I've been there. I've seen the darkness. I've tasted the bitterness. You can tell me, Cee Cee… I will understand. What happened to you?"

Matthew lifted ravaged eyes to his daughter. Eyes she knew had seen the very things she had seen.

"I killed someone Papa…"

The confession, taking all that was left out of her, she crumpled into her father's arms and cried until she could cry no more

XX

 _This is a story I am challenging myself to write. I'm not sure how much anyone else is interested but Hearts and Bones was a story close to my heart, and this sequel will connect the events of MM's lives to those of their children. Cecile's experiences will be continued in the next chapters but Isabella will also have her own confessions about her marriage to reveal bringing up the past in ways Mary and Matthew wouldn't ever have expected. I hope you'll stay for the journey._


	4. Chapter 4

XX

 _The Lysander was late. The first rays of the sun already hinted along the horizon. It had been expected hours ago._

 _Gaby pinched her lips, biting the inside of her mouth in nervous tension. Unnecessarily but compulsively she checked to make sure the two pieces of luggage that hid their radios were by the door. They would quickly carry them to the plane, get on board, and be seated immediately as the pilot would take off almost before he completed the landing._

 _Cécile shifted the bit of heavy cloth that served as a curtain slightly aside with one finger and glanced out_ , _her ear_ _straining to hear the spluttering noise of the Lizzie's propeller blade._

 _The owners of the farmhouse stayed upstairs for their own protection._

" _Here it is!" Cécile announced, seeing the faint blinking lights on the plane's wings._

 _The two women made for the door, each grabbing their case. They made the first few hundred yards safely, hiding behind the hanging branches of a willow tree to wait for the Lysander to finish its approach in the nearby open field._

 _Only then did Gaby realize they weren't alone. A silhouette shifted and she pulled out her pistol._

 _Cécile saw the action and froze; her blood ran cold._

 _They had been discovered._

 _Everything that happened next occurred in a blur. She had trouble remembering the sequence later when retelling it to her debriefers. Yet they demanded she give them a point for point replay. "What happened then?" They kept asking and asking._

" _We all just stared at each other…" Cécile felt hounded and started to stammer. "I don't think he expected to see us any ….any more… more than we did to see him."_

" _Are you sure?" Her immediate supervisor, Nancy Wilder, asked. She was a hard, but fair woman. Cécile admired her. "The German SS agent made a move towards Gaby and she pulled her weapon?"_

" _Yes. But he got the jump on her and shot first. She fell…dropped the pistol." Cécile choked on her words. She hardly knew Gaby but had learned to trust her. "He turned to check on the Lizzie's approach and I …I guess I instinctively picked up the Welrod." She willed herself to tell the rest, balling her hands into fists. "He… He turned back towards me …and I … I …I pulled the trigger."_

 _It had sounded unnervingly feeble due to the gun's silencing baffle design._

 _Blood splattered her face and hair._

 _The body fell forward, disrupting a pile of leaves at her feet._

 _He didn't move. He was dead._

 _Time funneled and she was rooted to the spot._

 _Then chaos as the pilot of the Lysander exited the plane and rushed to get Gaby, pulling her bodily into the aircraft. He looked over at Cécile. He hissed for her to grab the cases and get on board._

 _Cécile, her training clicking in, clutched the heavy cases and stepped up the fixed ladder over the port side of the Lysander. Once at the hatch she tried to push the heavy things inside. She grunted only to be silenced by the pilot who poked his head out and helped her by lifting Gaby's case inside front cockpit._

 _She boarded and strapped herself into the rear cockpit, the cramped design making her sit with Gaby on her lap. Then the lurch as the plane took off._

 _Cécile spent the flight watching Gaby's mouth open and close, her moans muffled by whine of the engine. She kept pressure on Gaby's stomach to staunch the bleeding. Much of it got over her own shirt and trousers._

 _They landed a couple hours later at RAF Tempsford. Gaby clasped Cécile's hand weakly before being carried off on the stretcher to the Ministry of Defence Hospital Unit._

 _It had been touch and go with her fellow SOE agent. Hours later she was told Gaby didn't make it. She died on the operating table._

 _A day later Cécile, still in shock, was before a board of SOE mission examiners._

 _She didn't want to hear any praise. But it was forthcoming._

" _You did well considering," Cmdr. Wilder said, concluding the initial debrief. Murmurs from the others at the table confirmed assent. "You'll be back at Downton tomorrow or day after. Colonel Thornley will be up from London. He'll have his own questions."_

 _Cécile curtly nodded, got up, and left the room. She was allowed to stay with her family once transported back to Yorkshire but even that unnerved her. Her younger brothers peppering her with questions she couldn't answer. Her mother breezily acting as if she had returned from a vacation in the west country. Bickering with Isabella in part because she was irritated her sister remained the same whereas she felt completely different._

 _They might have been strangers to her._

 _Only Matthew penetrated her muddled brain. Her father's faced etched in worry, his blue eyes hooded and dark. She knew he imagined what she been through. Even if he was SOE, she couldn't tell him much of anything other than she must return early the next morning at Downton for further debriefing._

 _Downton… Yet another thing from a world out of a H.G. Wells novel._

 _Her family's ancestral home, the safest place in all the world to her as a child. She loved exploring its nooks and crannies. She knew it intimately. And it was now an alien environment. The library, full of dusty old books and corners where she hid away, now resonated with a cacophony of clacking typewriters and ringing phones. Recruits training in the Monks garden where they used to have long summer picnics. Her own bedroom suite now a staff billet._

 _Nothing stayed the same._

 _Cécile got through the next round of grueling debriefing and returned to Crawley House more keyed up than she realized. She hadn't meant to be short with her papa in the morning room earlier when he tried to reach out to her. But having been told only that his war service was cut short by his injury and that he spent most of life in diplomatic work, she wasn't sure how he could relate._

 _Was there a missing part to the story?_

XX

 **Crawley House August 1941**

Matthew lifted ravaged eyes to his daughter. Eyes she knew had seen the very things she'd seen.

"I killed someone Papa…"

The confession, taking all that was left out of her, she crumpled into her father's arms and cried until she could cry no more.

Matthew held his daughter tightly for he knew not how long. His daughter had been in harm's way. Had killed most probably for her own safety. And there was nothing he could do.

Her crying jag run its course, but she stayed sheltered within his protective arms.

Cécile finally sat up, taking his handkerchief to rub her eyes. "I can't tell you any details. I probably shouldn't have said anything."

"I know you can't. You don't need to…" His own imagination run amuck however as he tried to conjure up scenarios of what happened to her in France. He knew from being in the SOE himself what was most likely. She was a radio operator in France, surveillancing German activities, and got caught out by some enemy agents and forced to shoot.

His sweet child. Now changed. Forever. If his own experiences were any guide.

"You can get through this…" He heard himself say. Such a lying cliché you bastard to tell her that, one part of his brain screamed. But no matter. It was more true than a lie. He was proof of it, wasn't he?

"How do you know, Papa?" Cécile lifted her head up. "Really. Tell me."

Matthew relaxed his shoulder and sank against the wooden back of the summer house's bench.

He made a start. "I haven't been as straight as I might have been about my time in the army…"

Cécile moved so that she could see her father's eyes. He wouldn't meet hers, remaining downcast.

In family matters she never knew her father was capable of duplicity.

"What do you mean? I know you were with the light infantry at the Somme but you slipped and fell hurting your back and got posted to the War Office."

"That's the thing…" Matthew was suddenly restless. He got up, shoving his hand in his pocket to fetch the cigarette pack. He lit one and took a deep drag. Rubbing his brow with his free hand, he paced around the summer house.

"May I have one?" Cécile asked.

Matthew's eyes narrowed, but he handed the Black Cat packet and lighter over with a sly grin. "Don't tell you mother…"

They smoked in companionable silence for a few minutes.

"What do you want to tell me Papa?" Cécile stubbed out hers under her foot.

Matthew stared into empty space, two fingers rubbing against his lips.

How to begin when you've spent years trying to forget?

The only way was to start. He started to pace the summer house again. "I know what I don't want to say is that I know what you've been through. I hated it when anyone said that to me when I knew damned well, they most probably a red tab jobbie back in London."

He was stalling, he knew. It was incredibly hard getting the words out.

The pacing continued.

"I was ordered out with five men on an early dawn reconnaissance patrol. This was in August of 1916 at Fromelles along the Somme. Our battalion had already seen action of course. At Ypres in April of '15 and Loos in September. I was slightly wounded at Loos putting me in hospital and convalescence for about a fortnight." He rubbed his right arm unconsciously remembering when he dislocated it throwing a grenade.

"But … nothing like the Somme. Despite all predictions by Haig and the others, we never advanced more than six miles and it was just a muddy, hellish slog. So, we needed any advantage we could get."

Already this was more information than Cécile was ever told. She had so many questions but she let her father talk without interruption. He was unusually flat in his narration. The pain, even so, apparent in his voice.

"Our orders were to determine German field and machine gun placements. We left shortly before stand to and crawled our way across our lines to their front-line trench. We had intelligence that if we went a mile and a half to the east, the line was lightly manned and we could cut the wires. The mud slowed us down but we made it through the first line trench without discovery. I ordered we spread out in pairs to secure it before we moved onto the second line trench. That's where we'd find the gun emplacements. Glover and Okes went first. Okes slipped in the muck but scrambled across the top of the trench. Webber and Sloane next. Then myself and Corporal Cosway were the last to go, making sure no one followed us…"

Matthew faltered, his eyes turned stony dull, staring into the middle distance as if he was truly back in time. Remembering it all in his mind's eye.

Cécile wondered if she could even reach him. The memories were coming swift and fast now. His voice picked up speed as the events in his mind sped forward.

"…Turned out we were right on the German field gun position. I drew a map of the gun placements and the rest of the trench lines and shoved it in my pocket. The rest looked out for any sentries. Then we crawled through the mud to the third line to see what was beyond the parapet. We were going fine but then Okes noticed the sentries spotted our movements. Two Germans raised the alarm. I was closest so I pulled out my pistol and shot one of them as the other ran for reinforcement. He fell…"

A pause, his jaw clenched. "I made sure he was dead and then tore off his identification tags as we were trained to do and rifled through his pockets for a diary or any papers he might have on him. Standard procedure…"

Matthew's nostrils flared. "A wet stinking fog rolled in as well. At first, I thought it was gas but it was just the smells from the cesspit latrine combined with the usual miasma of creosote and rotting …uh…" Matthew stopped suddenly, realizing he was speaking to his daughter. He started to censor the exact truth. "Ummm…rotting sandbags."

Cécile knew what he was doing. "I can take the truth Papa. I want to know everything."

Matthew met his daughter's eyes and, as painful as it was, he knew she could take it. There was a hardness in those blue eyes that weren't there before. She had seen too much already in her short life. He couldn't protect her anymore. She didn't need to be.

"The truth is the stink was a mixture of things, really. Sandbags, cordite from the shells, cigarettes, the latrines. But also, the…" he swallowed, images he tried very hard to suppress rising to the surface of his brain. Of the dead bodies strewn about the barbed wire, body parts laying in the mud, rotting corpses that you sometimes stepped on or across because there was no other way to get back to safety. "Sometimes the rain would wash away the shallow graves and the stench from the rotting flesh would rise up. It…it mixed with the other smells and it threatened always to overwhelm you."

"Thank you, Papa, for treating me like an adult."

He embraced her. "You're welcome. I don't guarantee it will last, my darling. You will always be my little Cee Cee in my heart."

"So what happened to you in that trench that caused your spinal shock?"

Matthew tried to tell the rest more succinctly. "We were trying to move quickly, but the heavy rains of night before made our movement slow. The fog helped and hurt in that it kept us hidden but gave us trouble finding our way back to where we cut the wire. I ordered that we split up again in pairs along the second line. But very soon the fog cleared in front of me and I saw that without knowing, I had sent Webber and Sloane direct into the German line of fire as they were coming out of the dugout after the sentries had raised the alarm. They don't yet see either man so I have just one chance. Corporal Cosway continued to look for the way back as I made back towards the second trench. A grenade hit and I saw Sloane fall. Webber covered me as I lifted Sloane and dragged him towards Cosway's position. Then Webber got shot in the leg. I… went back for him as well. I threw two grenades and hoped for the best as we both slipped and slogged our way to the wire breach. We took stock and realized we still didn't have Okes and Glover."

The names of his men. Like talismans, they gave him the strength to go on. He needed to keep their memory alive. And yet he could no longer conjure up their faces. Faces he swore he'd remember always.

Cecile noticed in his telling Matthew moved in and out of present and past tense. As he relived it.

"They got lost along the wire. Cosway stays with Webber and Sloane while I crawl down the wire but I couldn't see a thing. Then the Germans explode a star shell to briefly illuminate our position and two machine guns start cross firing at us. But the light allowed me locate the two men. Glover was caught on the barbed wire. I pull out with the wire cutters and with Oke's help we yank him off and crawl back to our side of the wire. The field guns start firing down notifying our own line that we were caught out. That meant though we were in no man's land. We had to take shelter in a quagmire of a shell hole. The machine guns pit the back of the crater as we slide down, covered completely now in muck and God knows what. The shellacking continued but finally we have a break when our guns started firing back. I threw the remaining grenades back across the German line, the men crawling their way to safety."

He stopped talking, his face once again ashy pale.

"Cosway was the last. I turn towards him and, because we got disoriented in the crossfire, we both slip once again into a pit. He's shot and starts to drop hard. I'm underneath him and crash down onto something incredibly hard at the bottom. Turned out to be a wagon wheel from a supply cart. I couldn't move at all. Cosway's body tumbled on top of me. I've no idea how long we stayed there. I was in and out of consciousness. I remember the blood seeping out of his gaping wound and dripping slowly onto my cheek…"

"He was dead of course," Matthew said dully, the pain still too hard to take. "Cosway deserved better. I thought eventually he'd move up the ranks and be made an officer."

To have something to do, Matthew lit another cigarette. "I couldn't shift the body nor could I feel my legs. I'd no idea what was wrong. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity three privates and Lt. Felton came and pulled us out. I remember screaming in pain but nothing more until I woke up in at the dressing station as they attempted to clean me up. The map and other things I took from the German sentry were handed over to Felton. I was transferred to hospital where it was confirmed I wouldn't be able to walk for several weeks until the swelling went down from the bruising on my spine."

Cécile absorbed the story in silence. To now know her father's quiet and bookish exterior hid a man capable of such heroic action inside was revelatory.

"What happened to your men?"

"Corporal Cosway died in the pit. The others though were transferred to the dressing station. I inquired and Webber's leg was badly damaged and it was later amputated. Sloane somehow emerged with only some cuts and bruises. Okes suffered a dislocated shoulder but was otherwise in good condition. Glover and I both had bad scarring on our knees from the barbed wire."

Matthew dropped down on the bench alongside Cécile, shattered from reliving the events that had haunted him for years.

The two shared a look that only those in combat would know.

"Were you even aware of what you were doing? Or was it all a blur?" The debriefing had been difficult for Cécile in trying to detach herself from the emotional tumult and to give just the facts as they occurred chronologically.

Matthew considered the question. "Some things are stark in my memory. They happen like a dream in a kind of slow motion. Other things I don't remember but separate reports later tally that I did do things that must have come from a place of desperation or fear."

"Yes…" Cécile agreed. "That's so with me."

Matthew was glad he could help, if even in a small way. But he still couldn't tell her the whole story.

Never believing he deserved the honour, Matthew received the Victoria Cross for valour. While in hospital, his commanding officer told him that all his men reported what happened on their patrol and how Matthew had gone back repeatedly to save them from capture or death while being severely injured himself. The information he acquired proved also to be extremely useful, particularly the diary of the sentry that included locational information of field and machine guns all across that sector of the German lines. To assuage his raging guilt, Matthew used his time of recuperation to ensure that his own report highlighted the resourcefulness and bravery of his own men. Cosway posthumously received the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the others were Mentioned in Despatches.

Yet by 1921, he was the lone survivor. It was only Mary and now his children that allowed him to believe he shouldn't also be among the dead. Survivors always felt a fraud.

Did Cécile feel the same?

"I'm sorry my generation let yours down, Cee Cee. We were supposed to end war," Matthew's lips curled in disgust. "As if that could ever be. But the hatred of the last war is one thing that brought on this one. But the difference is this cause is more just. My war was a useless exercise in jingoism and warmongering. Your actions in France will be directly part of a chain of events that will bring down Hitler's dictatorship. I wish it never happened. That you could have continued your studies and gone to the Sorbonne as we planned, where you would have been brilliant of course."

Cécile grimly smiled. "My education has been very different that's for sure." The grueling training of the SOE had prepared her for France. But it didn't quite prepare her for the person she became after she shot that German. "I know I did what I had to do. What I was trained to do. But I'm not sure I can ever go back."

"I won't patronize you. You are changed. You're tougher now, that's not going away. But use it, don't give into it. If that makes any sense at all." Matthew wasn't sure how to say what he wanted to say. "Just don't let the war win. Like you we weren't allowed to talk to civilians about the war. To do so would have been almost treason. Even during my convalescence, I couldn't talk to my mother about what happened. And then I had no one to tell. She died in the bombing raid while I was still in hospital. My wife died of flu just months later. My father, so far into his own grief, there was no communication between us. I felt very much alone. It's no good, that kind of life. I never want that for you."

"Just speaking about it with you has made it easier to bear." Cécile kissed her father's cheek. Trying to lighten the mood, she jested "Are there any more secrets lurking in your life? You didn't become a double agent in Germany or a Bolshevik in Russia or something?"

Matthew laughed. "No. You know the rest. I recovered eventually but my injury prevented me from returning to front line duty. I moved to the War Office where I was attached to the staff of Marshal Foch and later the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. I met Mary in Paris and my life reawakened."

Cécile's brow furrowed. "I thought you met Mama at Downton. When you found out you were heir."

Matthew gulped, his eyes beetled back and forth. Well he let that cat out of the bag. At no time had either of them ever admitted to their children about the torrid affair they conducted in Paris. How would that conversation even start?

He dissembled. "Yes, that's it. When I first went to see Robert." And quickly changed the subject. "Let's go get a cuppa, shall we? And see if Mrs. Shaw has squirreled away some sandwiches."

Cécile let it go, but filed away her father's obvious prevarication for further inquiry at a later date. What was up between himself and Mama that left him red faced and ill at ease?

"I'm famished. After you." She followed her father back down the path towards the side door of Crawley House that led to the kitchen.

After nibbling on some cheese and crackers left on a sideboard and pots of tea, the two walked to the staircase leading to the upstairs bedrooms.

"Good night, Papa. The house feels so odd without George and Robert stomping around their room."

"I'm to fetch them back tomorrow so they'll make up for it soon enough."

"I need to get out and go on a good long ramble so I can get them at the Easton's."

"Absolutely. Good night."

They parted as Cécile continued down hallway to the room she shared with Isabella.

Matthew turned into the bigger bedroom at the right corner of Crawley House. Mary lay curled up on the bed, reading.

"Waiting up?" Matthew moved over to his wife, bending down and kissing her lips. "You didn't have to."

"I know…" Returning the kiss. "I wanted to."

Mary shifted to allow him to sit beside her on the bed. "How is she?"

"We had a good, long talk. She's so strong, Mary. Amazing."

"I'm glad. It's so frustrating not being able to know more…"

Matthew swung his legs onto the bed, cuddling next to Mary. "They're all growing up so fast."

"Isabella is leaving by the way. She's going back home. She received a telephone call that Charles will be on leave within a fortnight."

"Is everything all right there? She hardly talks about him," Matthew observed.

"I don't know. Isabella can be very elusive."

"Hmmm…" Matthew nuzzled Mary's neck. "Like someone else I know."

Mary luxuriated in the attention. "Keeps one's husband guessing…"

He chuckled in that deep throated way that made Mary move even closer to his body.

" _Naturellement,"_ Matthew responded, slipping into French. _"Je t'aime Mary. Je t'aime tellement."_

 _"Je le sais, mon amour."_

With passionate intensity Matthew made sweet love to Mary. She felt his need to give himself to her. She accepted and gave it back.

Resting in each other arm's later, Matthew said "We should escape for a few days. I think Cee Cee would love taking care of the boys. I'm sure I can hand things over to Hanson at the office. We could go north somewhere. Scotland maybe."

Their usual getaways of Paris and London were out due to the ravages of war.

Mary quickly agreed. Matthew had been working so hard and dutifully at whatever war job she couldn't know about, she jumped at the chance of a private get away.

"I can't wait," she said, reaching for him once again.

XX

 _Matthew's story is based partly on things I read in war memoirs (particularly the actor Basil Rathbone who won the Military Cross in WWI). I hope I recounted such an experience accurately.  
We'll continue with Isabella's story in the next chapters (she has her own issues that will relate in quite another way to Mary and Matthew's past). We'll also follow MM to the Western Isles Hotel in Tobermory, Scotland.  
And finally yes I did change the name of Isabella's husband (sharp readers might figure that out lol). I already have a Sebastian in The Gift so now Bella's husband is Charles _


	5. Chapter 5

**September 1941**

 **XX**

"This way…" Robert pointed across the headland. "The village Salvage Steward asked Mr. Graham and he asked Mama who agreed that we could take anything we wanted."

"What are we looking for?"

"Paper, rags, old metal things. I wanted to collect bones from the farm but Mama said that the Land Army is taking care of that. That was disappointing."

"The carcasses of dead animals are in demand, my science master said, because the glycerin from bones can be extracted to make explosives as well as camouflage paint." George explained, lifting the barrow over a hump. "Pull harder Robert. I know you're four years younger but I can't do it all myself. If you can't do it, I can ask Cee Cee."

Robert gave his brother the stink eye. "I'm not too young," doing his best not to sound like he was whinging. George was always trying to show how much older and smarter he was.

George grinned, knowing he'd successfully irked his younger brother. So, spurred by that success, he continued. "In two years, I can join the junior division of the OTC. Then if the war lasts maybe even pilot training."

Robert gloriously countered, "Papa doesn't want you to go. I heard him say to Mama that he hoped the war was over long before that." He was dead pleased that comment stopped George's boasting.

The older brother concentrated once more on pulling. He wouldn't contradict his father but secretly George did wish for his chance at the RAF.

Cécile and Isabella trailed behind their two younger brothers across the headland towards the derelict cottages on the estate. George pulled on one side of the wheelbarrow as his brother took the other handle.

Cécile rubbed a sleepy eye, glad she poured some coffee into a thermos before setting out with her brothers and sister from Crawley House at what seemed, on her hols away from the SOE, an ungodly hour.

"Why did Robert want to leave so early? Surely the cottages aren't going anywhere?"

"He wants to rummage around for anything that can be used for the war effort. He's keen to start collecting salvage scraps after listening to the wireless program that reminded everyone," and she took on the plummy tone of the announcer, "' _waste not for the war will be won when everyone pitches in for victory_.'"

"I see." Cécile grinned. "George is keen to go hunting for downed German planes. He swore he saw a nose cone in the south field when we went riding yesterday. I guess he figures he can work alongside George to collect his share and at same time scout around. I do believe he wants to find a pilot burned alive still in the cockpit."

"Boys really are gruesome little creatures aren't they." Isabella laughed.

Cécile was glad Isabella was in a mood to talk. She was trying to build fresh bridges with her sister. They had done nothing but get on each other's nerves for the past few days.

"Sorry for being so catty, Izza. It's wasn't my intention."

Her sister gave a half smile. "Did you and Papa have a good talk? I saw you both the other night in the summerhouse for hours…." She saw Cécile hesitate and then added, "you don't have to tell me details. I know I'm supposed to think the pair of you have nothing at all to do with the war."

Cécile heard the sarcasm in Isabella's voice but appreciated her disinclination to pry. "We did have a good talk. But there was one thing that confused me. Has Papa ever talked about being married before Mama? He said it to me like I should already know but I don't."

"I'm not surprised. At the time your head was full of dreams of the Sorbonne. He told us back in '39 when we moved to the Abbey from London. After Grandpapa's death."

Cécile's eyes narrowed. "When exactly?"

"We were all helping sort out what to take from the London house back here. Mama was directing the task upstairs with Anna and Wilson. Myself and Papa were downstairs in his office. I pulled out a drawer chock full from a side table and started a rummage. I came across all kinds of things I had never seen before. Pictures, rings, a few pieces of jewelry. Papa was busy on the telephone and didn't see me until he hung up and turned around and saw me holding a picture frame of himself in uniform with another woman on his arm."

Isabella remembered how the colour drained from her father's face. " _What are you doing?" he had demanded sharply. And then stopped himself. "Sorry…" he bent down and kissed the top of his daughter's head. Then squatted next to her._

" _What are these?" Isabella held up the frame. "Who's this woman? I don't understand."_

 _Matthew gave a hard exhale, his brow furrowed. "…erm… just some things from my family's house in Manchester. I must have shoved them all away when we first moved in here. I …" His face flamed red at that memory, as if embarrassed. "…I forgot all about them."_

 _He took the frame with the faded photograph out of Isabella's hand and wiped away the thin layer of dust that obscured the picture. It was as he remembered. The woman shy, trying to smile. The uniformed man diffident, putting on an act of confidence. "This is my first wife, Lavinia. It was taken on our wedding day in 1918."_

" _What?" Isabella was stunned. At no time had she ever known her father had been married before her mother._

" _It was very brief," Matthew's voice broke. "She died of the flu a few months after we wed." He grimaced and gently put the picture back in the drawer. "I'll take care of all this. You go see if your mother needs help."_

The memories of that moment flooded back.

 _Her father, who possessed such savoir faire, now appeared completely lost. As if he'd seen a ghost. Whether it was of himself as a younger man or the woman who was ever so briefly his wife, she wasn't sure. She tried to give a reassuring smile and made a move to stand. He then gripped her fingers, saying hoarsely "I'll tell Cécile myself. When the time is right."_

"He must have forgotten that he didn't tell you." Isabella shrugged. "It was a long time ago. Doesn't really matter now, I suppose."

Cécile knew her sister didn't have the knowledge of Matthew's painful past that she now possessed.

"It's quite the opposite in fact." Her younger self might not have understood her dearest papa keeping secrets and, had he divulged it, she would have pestered him to know everything. She did now understand. "It matters a great deal. But you're right about him forgetting. I suppose Papa wanted his past to stay in his past. We should honour that it's their life."

His marriage was clearly tied up to that time in his life where everything seemed broken, lost. The time before their mother had saved him. Wasn't that what he said in their talk?

She couldn't help the curiosity though. "What did his wife look like? Was she similar to Mama?"

"In passing maybe. Both are slender in build. Lavinia had lighter hair but mostly there was a …a melancholy about her. For two people on what supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, they both looked quite sad."

"Hang on…" Cécile stopped walking, another mystery now manifesting itself. "He has a picture of his first wedding but none with Mama? Hasn't that ever struck you as odd? Lady Mary Crawley, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Grantham, and no one thought to take a picture?"

"There's the one on the table in the library…"

"Taken at Downton, though. They were married in Paris."

"Paris?" Isabella stared at Cécile. "How did I not know this?"

"I only know because auntie Sybil let it spill when I was with her when Paris fell to the Germans last year. She said something about how important Paris was to them as they married almost twenty years to date of invasion. So that means Mama and Papa married barely a week after he first came to Downton because don't you remember? We visited Manchester Cemetery and saw that his father's death was in June 1919. That picture on the table is dated July 1919."

"Why Paris?"

Cécile shrugged. "Why get married within days of meeting? We've always been told of this whirlwind romance but it doesn't really add up."

For a close-knit family, the sisters were realizing just how little they knew of their parent's lives. Their childhood in London had been full and happy. Neither had any reason to be interested in the past. What other secrets were concealed behind her parent's seemingly ordinary marriage?

"Auntie Sybil is arriving from Wiltshire at the end of the week, maybe she can sort it again. I'm supposed to telephone Auntie Edith to tell her the news. She'll probably be visiting as well."

"Another houseful again then. When did you say Mama and Papa were returning from Scotland?"

"Thursday. They were already planning to come back as Papa wants to take George back to school personally. He and Robert will travel with George by train on Friday. He's staying a few days with them so actually we'll have the aunties and Mama all to ourselves." Cécile said. "I'm dying to know more of this story. Aren't you?"

"Indeed…" Isabella resumed walking behind her brothers who were deeply intent on their salvaging mission and heard nothing of their sister's talk. "But maybe it's best we don't pry too much. As you say, it is their life."

Cécile helped her brothers lift the wheelbarrow over a hump. They moved on towards the first cottage.

"I did say that, didn't I?" Cécile gave a short laugh. "But it's almost too good to pass up. Our parents leading this mysterious life in Paris? What a potential scandal, eh?"

Isabella tried to hide her anxiety. Would she want her own secrets to be revealed for example? Isabella kept putting off returning to her own house, the one she shared with Charles in Buckinghamshire. He was on leave next week. She had first decided to leave Crawley House to make their own home ready for his return. But once her parents set off for the Western Isles, she lingered. Saying she would help out Cécile with the boys. The truth was she didn't want to return home.

For Paul would be there. The lodger the army had billeted in the cabin that backed up to their property.

The very man she was dead keen on avoiding…

XX

The rocking motion of the train threatened to send Mary to slumber. Her head dropped onto her husbands' shoulder.

"How much longer?"

Matthew barely heard his wife's sleepy question over the sound of the locomotive. He looked at his wristwatch. "Not much more. Another couple of hours we'll be at Downton Station."

"I thought Yorkshire had horrid weather, but that constant rain on Mull was beastly. And the howling wind! Like mythological banshees with that wailing and howling."

"Yes…" Matthew snuggled closer as they had a private sleeper car with sitting room for the overnight journey from Scotland. "It did rather put a damper on our walks." He turned her chin towards him and kissed her lips. "But you must admit, it had its moments…"

Mary gave a deep chuckle. "True that…"

They had spent most of their vacation in the Western Isles Hotel suite, the rain battling against the window as they made mad love almost every day.

"Quite like Paris…"

"You sound almost wistful, dearest. We're not that old."

Matthew gave her a wicked smile, "I hope I proved that at least! I did try to give good service…" He winked.

"Most agreeable." Mary concurred about her state of blissful satiation.

"Perhaps…." Matthew moved even closer, his hands unbuttoning her blouse, reaching in and cupping her breast.

"On a train, sir?" Mary purred, eagerly pulling off his tie.

"' _Everybody's doing it'_ as the song says…" Matthew crinkled his nose. "So should we…" He shucked off his jacket and threw it on the other side of the carriage, getting up only to make sure their suite door was locked.

So they did. Most enjoyably.

Afterward Matthew watched his wife made necessary ablutions to return to her public self. He was so glad he knew the private Mary as well.

Mary glanced at the mirror, fixing the last piece of hair back into place. "When will you be back from Aysgarth? Robert can't wait to look around as he'll be starting there next year."

Matthew came up behind and kissed her cheek. "So he told me. I'm glad he's happy to start boarding school. It'll be good for him. We'll return on the 24th or so. George asked me to stay long enough to play in the parent-pupil cricket match and to meet his friends later."

"With your back? Mary tutted solicitously. "Be careful."

"I think I can manage…" Matthew answered slipping his arms around his wife once again. "Let me prove it to you…" His lips nuzzled her neck. "Plenty of time left before the train arrives my love."

Mary laughed and willingly gave in to her husband's desire. 

XX

Matthew and the two boys were on their way back to Aysgarth. They'd just arrived at the station in time to see Edith disembark.

"Auntie Edith!" Robert ran over and gave a big hug. George was right behind. Matthew brought up the rear, smiling and giving a wave to his sister in law.

"Hello! Hello!" She gave each nephew a kiss on the cheek.

"I wish I could have made it earlier but Bertie's mum is poorly and I didn't want to leave."

"We understand," Matthew said. "I hope she feels better soon. I'm taking this lot back to school and then be back."

"I'm going to stay with George for his first week," Robert stated excitedly. "I can get proper situated when I start next year."

"Goodness. You are getting big." Edith said. "Betram is about done with his engineering degree at Oxford then he'll build bridges for the Army."

She and Matthew exchanged knowing looks. Both knew the fear of sending their children off to war.

"How's Bertie?"

Edith tried not grimace in worry about her husband deployed somewhere in North Africa. "It's very hard for him to get any letter out. But as far as I know he's fine."

The whistle went off and Matthew knew he had to get the boys on board.

"Good-bye!" Edith waved them off and then walked the rest of way to Crawley House. Her bag would be brought by later by the porter.

Mary had tea ready in the morning room for Edith when she arrived. Cécile and Isabella were also on hand after spending the morning helping Anna get the boys traveling bags sorted.

"Sybil's expected soon."

"I'm so glad she could make it. It's been ages since we've all been together."

Within the hour they heard the front bell. Mary opened the door.

"Darling!" Mary embraced her sister. "At last!"

Sybil gave her coat to Anna. "Tom wanted to come as well but he couldn't leave the paper."

"More time for just us Auntie Sybil." Cécile declared as the two women entered the sitting room. "No boys allowed."

"Cécile…" Sybil embraced her niece. "How long will you be with us?"

"A few more days. I have to report to the Directorate of Army Personal Services next week. Papa has wangled a job interview for me." Cécile was slightly astonished at how easy the lies came these days regarding her war work.

It was perhaps because she knew her entire family already didn't believe a word she said.

"Oh…" Sybil raised an eyebrow in disbelief but didn't let on. "Sound dreadfully boring."

"Not like Sybbie's work," Isabella said as she walked into the room and gave her aunt a hug. "I'm looking for something more adventurous than a desk job in Whitehall," throwing a knowing look at Cécile. "How is she finding the WAAF?"

"It's quite exciting. She already has a group of plotters under her authority. She says days and nights are all topsy turvy with the night raids." None of that information was top secret as no one who lived near an airfield could fail to hear the roar of the Lancasters and Wellingtons every evening as they took off for occupied Europe.

Isabella paled. Her husband was a navigator with Bomber Command. He was on those bulky aeroplanes. And the thought that he was in danger only deepened her guilt. She took a seat and said nothing more.

Cécile and Sybil chatted about her aunt's work at the Greater Manchester Hospital. "With so many of the medical staff drafted into the military or recruited to work in military hospitals," Sybil said,  
I find myself run off my feet caring for the many civilians also in need of medical care."

"The Christmas Blitz must have been devastating," Edith commented.

"We have so many bombed out elderly patients whose families are no longer living with them. They're not taking care of themselves and with the rationing, it's not going to get any better for them."

"The WI is trying to help out with looking in on neighbors." Mary added. "I know Mama is deeply concerned. She's been visiting all the old tenants every week and made sure I knew to do the same once she left."

"Is she still in the Lake District?" Edith asked.

"Yes. Lady Dawson's invited us to join them for their Fall War Week activities. She's already fully involved Mama in the organizing."

"I can rope in Ruth who's a loose end. She's at a friend's now in Alnmouth but I can telephone her to take the train down to Bowness-on-Windemere." Her fourteen-year-old felt quite left out of the war effort at being just too young to participate in many things.

Sybil wasn't sure. "I've only a few days leave but if we go for a daytrip on the train, I'd love to see Mama."

"You should go," Cécile said. "The boys are back in school and Isabella's off in a day or two, right?"

"Yes…" her sister confirmed. She really had no excuse to stay any longer.

Mary found herself watching Isabella closely. She sensed something was definitely off with her eldest child. But whatever it was going to have to come from her. When she was ready to talk.

Anna walked in. She was helping Mrs. Shaw out serving at table. "Luncheon is served."

"Has Mrs. S worked wonders?" Cécile asked. "I saw her earlier giving a great deal of thought about how get best use from rations and still have some left for rest of week."

"It's her gift for sure, Lady Cécile," Anna agreed. "She's managed it again. Cottage pie, corned beef fritters, and pear crumble."

Mary walked into the small dining room at Crawley House behind her sisters. "Granny Violet would be appalled to know that we were serving such labouring-class fare," Mary dryly observed.

"'What have we come to?'" Edith gave a spot-on imitation of their granny's titter.

Sybil rejoined, "but she also lived long enough through many wars to say that 'needs must when the devil drives."

They all agreed.

The sisters missed their grandmother's witty bon mots.

XX

"Downton!" A young man approached Matthew, George, and Robert as they made their way towards the pitch using the nickname George acquired after his father was elevated to the peerage as Earl of Grantham and, as eldest son,

George was given the courtesy title of Lord Downton. "You're on the second slip."

"That's Teddy minor," George explained. "He's down the hall. His step brother is in RAF."

The slightly older boy approached. "Lord Grantham." He bowed. "How do you do."

Matthew shook his hand. "Are you Theodore Fenwick's boy? Weren't you in the Strangers Gallery the day your father gave his maiden speech?"

"Yes sir," pleased the earl recognized him.

"He's a good man. His speech on the constitutionality of abdication was instructive on several points of law." Matthew also remembered the snide gossip going around Westminster when Fenwick married a divorced woman and adopted her son into his own family. It made Matthew like the man even more as he clearly married for love.

"He's Undersecretary of State for the Home Office." Both Teddy and George couldn't help but internally yawn at the fact their fathers held such boring war jobs.

Matthew suppressed a smile. He knew George longed for him to be involved more directly in the war. And of course, he couldn't tell him anything about the SOE. Perhaps after the war he'd have a long talk with his sons when they were older and could understand both the need for secrecy as well as the real brutality of war. Sheltered from the horrors of bombings and evacuations like the children of larger cities, they were full of the drama of ' _so much owed by so many to so few'_ posters of the blitz Spitfire pilots, the rumbling growls of the bombers as they flew overhead, and the distant wail of the air raid sirens.

Matthew tousled his son's head. "We all serve in our way for victory." And then changed the subject. "Are you ready to play?" When George nodded, Matthew said, "get to your position then."

"Would you like to be on the 45, sir?" Fenwick asked Matthew "or wicket-keeper?"

"The 45 is fine." Bending behind the batsman would kill his back so he chose the field position. Matthew started to walk onto the pitch. Given this was just a practice round he hoped it would loosen him up for the real game the next day.

"Can I play?" Robert got his father's attention, hopping from one foot to the other. "I can field balls!"

George interjected. "You'll drop them. You're too young."

"Am not."

"Are too…"

"Boys." Matthew's firm voice stopped his son's bickering. "Robert. Let George and his teammates play now and when we're done you can come out and take a turn on the wicket, eh? What do you say? George will bowl it in."

Robert agreed even as the toe of his shoe kicked into the ground. "Yes Papa." He threw himself cross legged along the sidelines.

George and Matthew moved to their positions. "Let's make sure he hits the ball when he bats," Matthew encouraged. "We are all about _espirt de corps_ , correct?

His eldest son grinned. "I'll pitch it in so he won't even see that I'm giving him something easy."

"Good lad."

Both boys relished the opportunity to have a whole day where their father's attention was not divided by work or other distractions.

Matthew knew this time was precious. His beloved children were all growing up so fast. Each moment he could give was not to be wasted.

"Play!" The umpire shouted. And the game began.

XX

"Thank you," Cécile accepted the coffee cup from Edith who was pouring for everyone after dinner. Though sleepy, she wanted to spend as much time as possible with the family. She turned to her mother. "How much is left?"

Mary arched an eyebrow. "A few pounds and not the best quality. No milk or sugar however."

"I know plenty of people in Manchester who turn a blind eye to getting food from the black market." Sybil observed. "There's such deprivation."

"I hear people say there's sugar about as it 'fell off the back of a lorry.'" Edith said. "Watson even has people show up at the servant's entrance to Brancaster trying to sell not only sugar, but margarine, cheese, butter, bacon. Despite the prohibitions and the penalties for being caught, the potential for profit is irresistible."

"Tom's written about that for the _Guardian_. Trying to show it from the perspective of the victims as well as the spivs as the black marketeers are called. His editor rewrote most of it, saying law and order must prevail."

"The world's going to be a very different place once this war ends. Looser morals are everywhere. We had to let go a parlour maid because she was fraternizing with the officers from the convalescent home on the estate."

Sybil couldn't help but guffaw. "You're one to talk Edith. Don't you remember being young? I seem to recall we hid a scandal or two just in our family alone."

"Really…" Cécile leaned forward. Maybe now she'd get some answers to the mystery of Paris.

"Sybil is entitled to her opinions," Edith threw her sister a look.

"That's exactly the point. Even Granny would say it's outdated to expect my 'husband to tell me what my opinions are.' The world has changed. We should let go as well of outmoded societal expectations of behaviour. Why shouldn't a woman be able to have a relationship with whoever she wants. Mary and Matthew got away with an affair in Paris didn't they as long as they married in the end. Mama and Papa allowed you back into good graces when Michael Gregson did a runner? We know it was a lie for our parents to say 'it wasn't done in my day' when all they did was hush it up under the carpet. But only for our own class. Anyone else and it's 'throw them out on their ear.' Such hypocrisy."

"Oh Sybil, really!" Edith said. "Old news is old news. No one wants to hear that."

Cécile and Isabella exchanged looks of confusion. Their parents had an affair? Of course they wanted to know more. But a glance at their mother, who was rolling her eyes at Sybil's revelations, told them they had better wait until a more private time.

Edith countered Sybil's outburst. "It's also true that class still matters, whether you want it to or not. It gets hushed up among certain circles and is unacceptable in others. It's unfair but we've all been the beneficiaries of being in the class where as long as you go on to fulfill those expectations any youthful indiscretion can be forgotten. You ran away from home with the chauffeur. Mary got divorced. And yet we all ended up toeing the line one way or the other."

"Speak for yourself…" Sybil retorted gently. "I still like to think I have some rebelling left in me."

"Hear hear…" Cécile agreed. "I'd hate to conform to the fitness of things."

"Easy if you've never been tested." Isabella said, bitterness tinged.

Cécile turned to her sister. "What do you mean?"

Isabella shrugged. "Nothing." She shrank back against the sofa. She really shouldn't have called attention to herself. Something was in the air that night that seemed made for unwanted confessions.

Mary again noticed her daughter's anguish. She needed to get to the bottom of it. And she knew there was no way of getting out of an explanation for her sister's outbursts about her divorce and the time she spent in Paris with Matthew.

Sharing confidences was never her strength. But maybe tonight she needed to do just that. If it would help bridge the gap between herself and her daughters, maybe she needed to show a side to herself that she seldom displayed.

She might not get another chance.

XX

 _I do love hearing and reading your opinions on my stories. This one is close to my heart. And even though I don't think it's the most popular thing I've written I've set myself the challenge of a WWII story and a confessional sequel of sorts to Hearts and Bones so on we go to discover what Isabella is hiding and how Mary's own secrets might help._

 _Thanks!_


	6. Chapter 6

XX

"I'm off to bed," Sybil yawned. "This last week at the hospital has caught up with me. We were ever so busy."

"Does anyone else want hot cocoa? I'm going to make some before heading up myself." Edith walked towards the door leading to the main hallway of Crawley House. She added, "Mrs. Shaw admitted there was only powdered milk."

"No thank you Aunt Edith," Cecile answered.

The two others shook their heads.

Edith and Sybil left, both sensing that Mary wanted to talk to her daughters alone. Sybil's revelation about their parent's pre-marital relationship had obviously come as a surprise.

In the hallway Edith said, "I always thought that story of them meeting at Downton was a fabrication. The way he rushed after her when she cut in with that remark about stealing her inheritance."

Sybil gave a moan. "Sometimes I wish my mouth would be led more by my head. I shouldn't have blurted that out about their affair. Mary told me that in confidence donkey's years ago."

"You were ever her favorite sister," Edith dryly observed, though without any lingering bitterness. "We're in a good place now but I missed out on a lot. And it didn't really matter, I decided. After they married everything sort of settled down once the girls were born."

"True. I think they preferred to keep the past in the past. I know Matthew's spoken to Tom about the war and Mary told me earlier he had a long talk with Cecile just recently given her own …let's say… questionable non participation in the war effort."

The women gave each a knowing look. They knew better than to ask as well.

"Isabella seems very subdued. I hope nothing is too much amiss other than she's missing Charles."

"Mary said she wants to join the ATA," Edith said. "That's quite dangerous."

"Is it to contribute, I wonder? Or to escape from something?" Sybil queried. "She has been the steadiest of Crawley women. Especially given we're a family that tends to run off and do rash things. We've all done it one time or another. Maybe this is Isabella's time."

"I hope she confides whatever it is to Mary and Cecile."

XX

"Mama," Cecile decided to get right in it. "Auntie Sybil's comment earlier. Was your affair with Papa the reason both your marriages failed?"

If Mary was shocked by her daughter's bluntness, she didn't give anything away. Sometimes it was better not to rise to Cecile's attempts to provoke.

But Isabella's tongue clucked in disapproval. "Really Cee, Mama doesn't have to answer that."

Cecile gave her sister a side eye, "but you want to know. I know you do."

Isabella primly adjusted herself on the sofa but said nothing.

Mary sat down beside Isabella and encouraged Cecile to take the chair nearby. "I don't believe Matthew nor I ever meant for our past to be secret. Private, yes, as it is our own story. But I want to clear the air. Matthew's wife Lavinia died in 1918. I did not meet Matthew until the summer of 1919."

"She seemed very melancholy in the wedding photo I came across with Papa when we were clearing the old London house. He was visibly upset when I discovered it. I did wonder why but didn't want to pry too much."

"Matthew doesn't speak much of that time in his life. Diana has told me that Lavinia was very much in love, but they barely had a chance to start their marriage, when the war took Matthew back to France. He wasn't there when she contracted the flu."

"Diana knew her?"

Mary nodded. "Charlie, Diana, Nigel and Sarah Purefoy. They all were at their wedding."

Cecile recognized the names of Matthew's war associates and their wives. In London they had spent a lot of time with their respective children, Michael MacGuiness and Katie Purefoy whenever their parents got together for dinner. Michael had died earlier this year after his ship was torpedoed by a U-boat. They had dated briefly before the war but realised they were better off as friends.

"I know Lavinia's death preyed on his mind because she was so very young."

Isabella leaned forward in her chair. "Papa keeps so much to himself; I hope he knows we'd understand the grief he would naturally hold for his first wife."

"He determined not to dwell on the past. Especially once you two were born," she reached out and took her daughter's hands into her own. "He didn't want anything to mar the joy he felt seeing you grow up."

Isabella and Cecile looked at each other. It was true, they knew. Neither could have asked for more loving, fun, attentive parents. They had a storybook childhood.

Mary chose not to divulge that Matthew also lived with the shadow of how he behaved at the time. He knew he got married for all the wrong reasons. Running away from the horrors of the war and his mother's death he threw himself into a relationship he considered a return to normalcy. Lavinia had not been able to handle his moods, his needs. Their sex life had frightened her he had told Mary later on. Sheltered as she had been before the war, Lavinia knew nothing and no matter how slowly he had taken it she resisted any intimacy and withdrew from him.

Their Parisian affair, if Mary tried to consider it objectively, had a cathartic desperation to it. Willfully throwing himself into an affair where he lived in the moment, Matthew could expunge the past for as long as it lasted. She might rightfully feel resentful about that except that she had been doing the same. They had used each other to obliterate the pain of the past.

As if knowing what her mother was thinking, Cecile took Mary out of her reverie with another pointed question. "That still doesn't explain your own marriage. I take it you weren't married either when you met Papa? Who on earth were you married to? How could we not know him given our social circle?"

Mary shook her head. "You wouldn't. He moved with the woman who turned out to be his mistress to America in the 1920s. She was the widow of an ammunition manufacturer and independently wealthy because of war profiteering. I was completely in the wrong to marry him in 1917 and the messy divorce the following year both justified Granny Violet and your grandpapa's opposition to the union."

"Wowzer Mama. That's quite the revelation." Cecile said. "How did you meet?"

"Cliveden weekend. Some sort of war charity. Richard's a newspaper baron and used those parties to rub elbows with the right sort of people." She gave Cecile an arched eyebrow, "of course I didn't realize it at the time. I felt flattered he gave me such attentions. He was all smiles and compliments. He wanted into aristocratic circles and I wanted out of the waiting room I felt I was locked into until I married."

"And Great Granny smelled a rat?" Cecile inquired with a short laugh.

Mary nodded. "Nose atwitching. She was livid I was even considering the match which only made me more determined. I was foolishly young."

"Is that why you were so opposed to my marrying even younger?" Isabella interjected. "If so why didn't you tell me then?"

Mary eyes went downcast. "It's true, darling. I should have been more forthright. I am stubbornly private as you know. But your papa convinced me that your love was true and I felt therefore it was quite different from my circumstance and so didn't want to unduly influence you."

Isabella teared at the side of her eyes. She had been the happiest of brides on her wedding day. When had things gone wrong? Was it all her fault? But she wasn't quite ready to divulge her own secrets, so she asked instead, "what happened? How did your marriage fall apart?"

"I'm quite sure I'd still be married to Richard if I just went along with his occasional philandering. Plenty of women did because they accepted their lot. Or didn't want to risk the scandal of the divorce court. He realized I wasn't going to present him with an heir and so we began to spend more and more time apart. It just wasn't for me. I swallowed my pride and told Mama and Papa that forty or fifty years of accepting his behaviour wasn't for me and that they had been right all along." Mary gave a shrug. "In the end we endured the divorce court and I got my freedom back."

Both Cecile and Isabella knew the cost on their mother's dignity and admired her all the more for it. Knowing what her mother endured made Isabella even more angry at herself for being so weak willed.

She shrunk back again into the cushions of the sofa.

Mary couldn't bear to see her daughter's internal suffering anymore. "Isabella please tell us what's happened, darling." She reached out and put her arm around Isabella's shoulder.

Isabella broke down and curled up into her mother's loving embrace. "I… don't even know where to start. I believe I've ruined everything. Charles will never forgive me…"

Cecile rushed to her sister's side. "Don't say that Izza. Charles is a good man. He loves you so much."

Isabella's mouth turned down even more into a frown. "I don't deserve him. He's going to be the one to pursue divorce because of my fickleness."

Mary needed more information. "Start at the beginning," handing her daughter a handkerchief.

Isabella sat back up. She dabbed her eyes and tried to pull herself together. "Our property backs up to a freehold the army has put under their use for soldiers on maneuvers. There's a cabin who've they have seconded and billeted to the officer in charge of organizing the training maneuvers. His name is Paul. Lt. Paul Westcott. He's really a very charming man. He helped in fixing up the garage door that blew off it's hinges in the last storm. I asked him to dinner to thank him, just a simple meal of fish and veg and we shared a bottle of wine."

She gave her mother a pair of doleful eyes. "I'm horrible Mama. I had no idea I was so lonely until he arrived for that dinner. We laughed and laughed. I can't even remember why. Perhaps it was just the company. We walked back to his cabin. He asked me inside and … I … went. I woke up in his bed and, horrified, I crept out and went home. I couldn't face him again. And I couldn't write to Charles about what happened, so I came home. I don't know what to do. Charles will never forgive me. And he shouldn't. He shouldn't at all."

The tears streamed down her face.

Listening to that rush of a confession, Mary finally understood all the moodiness on display this visit. Isabella, like her father, took on all guilt even when others were equally to blame.

Cecile wasn't averse to saying it. "Did this Paul know you were married?" When Isabella nodded, Cecile snorted. "Then he could have been more of a gentleman and not take advantage of your solitariness."

"He's a fine man," Isabella interrupted, throwing up her hands in despair. "I can't say he took advantage. It…. It just happened. I've no excuse whatsoever."

Mary knew she'd be hypocritical if she didn't understand just what a sudden passion could do to one's psyche. All thought goes out the window along with rationality. You go instead where your emotions lead.

But this was her daughter after all … wasn't she supposed to set the example?

"Passion is a fickle thing…" she rather lamely started. "…married love is based on more stable foundations…"

"Oh Mama, really!" Cecile said, imitating a caricatured aristocrat. "I say I say, love is a shared commitment to tradition … and land holdings, dowry income…"

Mary rolled her eyes at her younger daughter. "Your sarcasm is noted Cecile, but largely unhelpful."

Cecile shrugged irascibly.

"You can't have it both ways. On the one hand you're chastising the young man for being a cad and bounder and yet on the other you're saying they should throw away conventions and follow their desires."

"Didn't you and Papa?"

Sometimes Mary hated how much Cecile took after herself.

"You had a love affair at a time when conventional norms were still in the dark ages. Wasn't it one shake of the hands and you had to become engaged or else imperil the woman's virtue?"

Isabella's head was beginning to throb. "Cecile! This isn't the time for you to be quarrelsome."

Cecile threw her arm around Isabella's shoulder. "I'm really trying to help, honestly I…" Cecile faltered. She couldn't say anything about her SOE experiences so she had to tread carefully. "I just know that nothing we do now is normal."

"That's too easy," Isabella responded bitterly. "I don't deserve Charles's forgiveness. I didn't keep my vows of fidelity. I can't blame the war for that."

"Maybe you can't, but I can. If, as you say, Paul was acting on the same instinct as you to find some comfort, then it can't be seen as unforgivable. We're in the middle of a nightmarish war where how we act wouldn't be the same as before. Help me here Mama. 1919 was right after the previous war. I know from our own conversation Papa was very fatalistic at this time. He could have had an affair. Did he tell you?"

"Of course he wouldn't." Isabella interjected, having none of that. "Papa wouldn't do anything dishonourable," Isabella affirmed again, as if to make herself even more miserable given her own decisions.

Cecile arched an eyebrow at her mother, the unasked question 'would he?' in her expression.

Mary chose to ignore it. That was a conversation for another time.

Isabella waxed more lyrical about her parents. "I'm sure they met in some kind of love at first sight on a beautiful boulevard in Paris. Maybe he even rescued Mama from tripping over a kerb or something…"

Cecile clucked, "Izza really?! You've read too much Jane Austen. Mama do please tell us what happened."

Unsure just how honest she intended to be, Mary had sat quietly in her chair, taking in their conversation. Despite Isabella's revelations she couldn't be prouder of her daughters at this moment. Both poised, mature young women with their own opinions and experiences struggling to make difficult life decisions on their own.

Mary started with some basic facts. "The Armistice came between my divorce and finishing Downton's time as a convalescent home in the spring of 1919. Paris beckoned once again now that the horrors of the war had ended. I made the trip to Paris with Mama to visit Madame Patou's in June 1919."

"That's where you met Papa." Cecile inferred. "In Paris. Is that why I have a French name?"

Mary knew Cecile wouldn't let it go without an answer. She nodded, "I was on my way to the couturiere when your father literally bumped into me on the corner of the _Rue de Gabelle_. He apologized most profusely in the most beautiful French."

Mary's mouth crooked at the corner into a secret smile. Oh, it still sent shivers down her spine remembering that first gaze into Matthew's eyes. Eyes that drew her in like the moon draws in the sea. Such sad eyes, disconcertingly beautiful. They had mesmerized her. She had wanted to know him completely.

Cecile noticed. "So it was love at first sight?"

Their mother paused ever so briefly. "Would it shock you if I said no?" Mary took in her daughter's looks. "You did ask for honesty."

She rubbed her brow. How best to explain the rush of emotions that overcame the two of them that day? Certainly, she wouldn't divulge the most intimate of details of their affair- The intensity of that first day where they made mad love long into the night neither telling the other their name; the anonymity intensifying the frisson of body meeting body with no limits to their passion. That information was theirs alone.

Mary would have liked to avoid this conversation entirely. She wasn't embarrassed by her behaviour, just unused to having to defend it. Especially to her children. But Isabella's quandary tugged at her heart strings. Cecile's caustic observations about Edwardian society wasn't wrong. Mary had grown up in a time that thrived on hypocrisy in matters of adultery. Publicly frowned upon, affairs happened all the time. Women, once exposed, were branded as Jezebels, wickedly seducing men to their doom when it was usually the other way around. Men would regularly find sexual satisfaction outside the bounds of marriage, whether with a married lady of his own station, or with prostitutes usually sanctioned under the guise of the gaming house, private club, or country house weekend. Matthew had discovered that while he was away at school as a boy and his father a doctor in the war in South Africa, Isobel had an unwelcome and rather frightening encounter during a visit to Downton where, to Mary's shame, a relation pushed his way into her bedroom and tried to force himself on her.

She saw it at close quarters within her own first marriage as Richard regularly took mistresses. His actions both mortified and infuriated her. The conceit that his actions would not affect his marriage because he provided Mary with a home in London and a monthly stipend was a particular cruelty as it implied her complicity could be bought.

It had proven to be a bitter lesson. One that left her wiser in the ways of the world.

And yet barely a year later she threw caution to the wind and into an affair with a man she barely knew.

Why? Simply because he was handsome? Or she was lonely? She had believed herself too jaded in her previous marriage to trust her heart. And yet she gave in completely…

Maybe some things were unknowable.

"There was passion first. Overwhelming passion. We both felt it instantly. After having coffee in a café, Matthew asked me upstairs to his rooms. I joined him without any compunction. It… it just seemed right. We couldn't resist the attraction. I… admit it was only later that we found out that neither of us were married. Our relationship lasted about six weeks. I returned to England and he returned to his work with the Peace Commission."

Isabella leaned forward giving her mother all her attention. She would never have thought her parents would have been so unconventional. The answer might indeed help figure out her own confusion of emotions.

"How much later? Would you have continued even knowing he was married?"

Mary had to tread carefully, knowing from experience Charles would be devastated once told. But her daughter clearly regretted her rash decision and understood she had done damage to her marriage and her husband's trust. There was no point in making her even more embarrassed or humiliated.

"He observed my finger had an indentation where once a wedding ring sat. I told him I was divorced. He then said his wife had died of the flu the year before. This was…" Mary wasn't honestly sure when. Those first days blurred into one long sensuous experience. "...within a day or two of our first meeting."

Cecile leapt at the chance to ask, "weren't you afraid of becoming pregnant?" dubious when her mother would be so talkative again.

"No." Mary realized she had no choice but to be open and honest. "I was convinced I couldn't conceive a child. I had none with Richard."

"But Papa… he didn't know that. And yet he had an affair… it seems so out of character. He's usually so careful with his actions."

"I learned later that he thought he was infertile because of his spinal injury." Mary admitted. "For the same reasons as myself. He had no children with Lavinia."

Isabella interjected again, "You've not answered my question, Mama. Would you have done what I did? Would you have had an affair with Papa knowing you were married?"

Hearing and seeing her daughter's anguish, but still not sure her answer would help in any way Mary searched deeply within herself for a response.

She took Isabella's clammy hands into her own. Oh, wasn't it so much easier when they were toddlers and all she had to do was cuddle them in her arms and kiss their troubles away?

"I … I was in a marriage where my husband was regularly unfaithful. So yes, a part of me wouldn't have any compunction to do the same."

"Out of spite?" Cecile asked.

"Petty, I know. But …" Mary shrugged. "It is a part of my personality. Ask Edith…"

"What if your husband wasn't unfaithful?" Isabella had to know. "Charles isn't…. as…as far as I know." He'd been away for over seven months, having to complete training and then immediately called up for flight work over occupied France. His letters were no help, usually missives devoted to funny stories from the mess. It had made her angry reading them. Did he ever think of her? Surrounded by WAAF plotters and operators. Her mind whirled at the possibilities of his infidelity, but was that only to defend her own disgraceful behaviour?

"You're both so young. Your marriage hasn't been allowed to grow as it should have. Cecile is right, war tears at the fabric of family life. It's brutally unfair to both you and Charles. You don't know yourselves yet. Haven't had the time to develop marital bonds that could help in this kind of situation. Neither did I. My marriage didn't give me any reason to put his feelings above my own. I do know what have done if I had met Matthew while still married to Richard. Though it goes against everything I was taught, I would have had the affair anyway."

There she said it.

Cecile gasped.

Isabella blinked. "You would?"

Mary massaged the space between her eyebrows. Finally, she began to think clearly on how to help her daughter. "Do you see yourself in a life with this young man, Paul isn't it? A lifetime of arguments, of forgiveness, of love, of children and family?"

Isabella hesitated.

Mary had her answer. She gripped her daughter's hand harder. "Or do you still love Charles? Is he the one you want to live your life with?"

Isabella's lip quivered. "Yes." Her shoulders sagged. "I do, ever so much."

"That's how I felt about Matthew. Don't ask me how I knew that day so long ago in Paris. I'd deny it. I'd say I didn't know. But I did. And he did. And we were lucky it turned out that we had the time to realize it and find a happiness I never expected."

Isabella absorbed what her mother said. And in her mind's eye she did see herself thirty years on still with Charles with a large loving family surrounding them.

That strengthened her resolve. "I will tell him and hope for the best. That's what I'll do." Isabella's fear clearly heard in her anguished tone. "Thank you, Mama. I will try."

Mary gave Isabella the only sure comfort she could give. A hard and strong hug where she hoped to strengthen her daughter's resolve with a mother's love.

They stayed that way for some time until Isabella got up, kissed her mother's cheek, and joined Cecile in going up the stairs of Crawley House.

Cecile waited for Isabella to walk up the stairs. Turned to her mother at the doorway. "Quite the evening this turned out to be."

Mary gave a wan half-smile. The events had tired her out completely. "We all make decisions we regret. Hers was particularly unwise. I hope their love is strong enough to survive."

"I know how private you are. That must have been difficult revealing so much of your past."

"If it helps, it was worth it."

"Anything else you might want to disclose?" Cecile risked, convinced her mother was telling only half the real story.

"Good night, Cecile." Mary drolly spoke. "It's a long day tomorrow. Time to get some rest."

Cecile chuckled. Between the conversation here and the one with Papa she was reeling from all of these racy disclosures about her parent's younger selves. "All right. I get the hint. I'm not sure I can take anymore really."

Mary blew her a kiss and Cecile retreated upstairs to Cora's room, sleeping there as her grandmother was away in the Lake District.

Alone, Mary suddenly ached to have Matthew close to her. To hear his voice that made her body shiver. To see his eyes that made her melt into his arms.

Their love sustained them throughout so many crises.

Love created in the calamitous aftermath of war. Unexpected. Fierce. Consuming. Enduring.

She hoped the same for Isabella.

XX

 _Phew…that was really difficult conversation for me to write. I hope you enjoy the difficulties of life for the Crawley family in the war years. I don't like everything always going perfectly lol. Please send a review my way if you too—it's very much appreciated. I'm trying to work in some of the real life situations Britons found themselves in during WWII both the exciting (the SOE) and the mundane (homefront). Both are important. And how that impacts the lives of the people, not just in major historical ways but personally. Thanks_


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